Bleeding in Shades of Gray
by Abandon-Morality
Summary: When Bobby left him there, he had no idea the hell he would inflict upon his friend, or the anxiousness that would haunt his days of waiting. In this tortured world, will the fragile trust that they built be enough to save a ravaged soul?
1. When a World Starts to Fix Itself

Tharrow I had divider lines, but they went poof when I uploaded this. I had forgotten that it does that, since it has been so long since I have posted. Thank you for your review.

Emeralden Rapley Thank you! I will be sure to update as soon as I can!

Sabercat7 I will try to continue as promptly as I can! I'm trying to plan this one out, so it is taking a little longer for me than normal. Thanks for the review!

nequam-tenshi You will see! I hope he is, but after going through what he did. . . (I know, I say it like someone else did it to him, when i'm the one who wrote him into that situation, but still . . .) Thanks for the review!

This is a pyro FanFiction; don't be fooled by the lack of mention thus far; he should come in in the next chapter. I want to thank Saber Cat 7 and Nequam-Tenshi for their reviews, even though I ended up changing the chapter completely!

* * *

><p>It was barely eight o'clock at Xavier's School for gifted youngsters, and the evening news wasn't due for at least an hour, but that didn't deter every television channel running from stopping and playing the sounds that everyone associates with the news; that same tell-tell jingle that is used by every station, with only slight variations.<p>

As Bart Bedsole, the local news anchor, came on with shifty eyes and a moist forehead, the children in the TV room called for their friends and teachers to come watch, all eyes wide in fear that this announcement could mean life and death; What if a mutant terrorist used powers to leave the nation reeling? What if a human attack on a mutant sparked flames in the already fragile social politics?

Just as the nervous man on the television opened his mouth to speak, Bobby Drake, the seventeen year old X-Man, walked into the room, asking in a weary tone, "What happened now?" to his three friends, Marie, Kitty, and Peter. They all shook their heads, motioning that the news caster hadn't said yet.

"I regret to inform you," Bart Bedsole said, his voice quavering, "That tragedy has befallen our nation yet again." Hushed whispers erupted through the group, kids casting worried glances towards their teachers, teachers looking at each other in trepidation. Before anyone could raise a comprehensive question, though, the broadcaster continued, "We have not been given any details, but the President of the United States will be holding an emergency address to the people of this nation sometime tonight."

Bedsole looked off to the side, frowning, and then put his hand to his ear, talking just low enough for the microphone not to be able to pick up. Turning back to the screen, his face paled, "Just this moment," he said, "we have received news that a team of reporters happened to catch the incident that we are about to be addressed upon on film, and that it is up on the internet. We are switching to that story now. This is unedited and may contain strong images; viewer discretion should be advised."

And with those hurried warnings, the screen went blank, soon to be replaced by a very tanned woman in a canary yellow pants suit in the front of a smoking building. The woman nodded to the camera before saying, "Thank you for tuning in this lovely winter morning, on January-3-2011. This is Tricia Pepperidge with channel thirteen news and we are bringing you today a freshly breaking story. Just minutes ago, we spotted the smoke from this fire at a seemingly abandoned research facility out here in Backwoods, Nevada."

The camera zoomed in on the collapsed building, just in time to see a small figure emerge from it. The woman and her crew rushed forward, helping a soot stained child from the ruins. "Sweet Jesus, are you alright, kid?" said Pepperidge, pulling the young boy to sit next to her on the ground, where she attempted to wipe off the grim on his face with a moist toilette that she had in her purse, though she mainly failed. "Please," the child cringed away from them, backing up against the hole that he had just come out of, "don't hurt me anymore."

And with one last sob, he fell onto a very stunned newscaster. "Quit fucking filming, John! Call a goddamn ambulance! I don't know how long this kid can make it."

The camera dropped to the ground and a man's voice came, muffled by the distance, "Yes, 8823 Wilshire. There was a fire in an old research building out here in the boonies. Yes, we happened to be filming when we saw the smoke. There's a kid here, he just collapsed. No, I don't know who he is! He just crawled out of the place and asked for us not to hurt him . . . No, I don't know what the place is, just the location . . .Oh, god, I hope that there aren't!" The voice came louder, "Goddamn it, Tricia! The chick at the police station thinks that there may be more kids in there! Fuck, hold the phone, you talk to them, I have to get in there!"

And then the man handed the phone to his colleague, running into the building, "Ma'am?" Tricia spoke into the phone, "Yes, I'm here. My camera man just went inside; he's looking for more. . . No, no one is anywhere near here; we were just driving to a nature preserve when we saw it . . . Yes, I think the boy is still breathing. You want me to what? Are you crazy? The kid is bleeding; I don't want him awake for this shit. I know that you're just doing your job but . . . Goddamn it, fine," Tricia placed the phone between her shoulder and ear, shaking the child in her lap awake with both of her hands as gently as she could.

"Kid, she said softly, "Kid, wake up. You're safe now; I've got you. But you have to wake up; the nice lady with the police wants to know what went on here. Kid?"

The boy in her lap opened his eyes and whimpered, before he could start to scream, Tricia put her hand over his mouth, just lightly enough to prevent him from going into hysterics, but not hard enough to scare him, "Kid," she said, "I'm not going to hurt you, just tell me what happened here."

The boy looked confused for a second, then bolted upright. "Oh, my god," he said, taking in the wreckage. "He finally did it." Then he repeated it, a grin breaking out across his face.

"Who did what?" Tricia asked, "What happened here? What is this place? Are there any more of you inside?"

The kid took her in, almost for the first time, and noticed that he was still sitting in her lap, and hastily got up, though he had to brace himself against the nearest patch of remaining wall.

The kid shook his head, "Not if they got out when he did."

"When who did?"

The kid shrugged his shoulders, "I don't know. He was kept in block A and I was in block C. I just heard of him from one of my block-mates. He was caught only a little while ago, and he's wild. They said that he was part of something called the Brotherhood."

Here Tricia paled, as did the students at Xavier's; all of them thinking about the war that could be started if this got out of hand.

The boy continued on, though, as if this was something ordinary, "Our two groups weren't allowed to interact unless the experiments drew us together, and then only when we could find a way around the guards."

Tricia frowned, clearly confused, along with the rest of the watchers, "What do you mean, 'guards'? What kind of experiments?"

"Government ones." He whispered, looking around fearfully, "They were trying to make people that weren't mutants into them, and take mutants and make them more powerful. I think that they were testing to see if they could control them long enough to make them useful. But I heard one of the doctors saying that the most powerful mutants were being cured, and that the cure wasn't working all the time, so they had to make one that was stronger."

Tricia blanched, "This is going to start a war." She whispered, her tone rightfully dire.

The boy cocked his head to the side, "Why," he asked, a small frown upon his young face, "It wasn't just mutants being taken apart. It was us, too."

Tricia looked like she wanted to throw up, "What is your name, kid? How long have you been here?"

The boy shook his head, looking uncertain, "I don't have a name, but you can call me by code; H 2-2-1-3. The 'H' means that I'm human, if I were a mutant; it would be an 'M' in the front. I was born here. Or, at least that's what the file I stole said. Most of us humans are. They catch the mutants though, since there are so many of them on the streets; at least that's what M 3-3-6-9 said to me before he died."

Tricia actually threw up, leaning against the same wall that the boy was, holding her long hair out of her face. When she was done, she turned to the boy, eyes shiny,"How can you talk about it like that? You're talking about someone dying, and you're acting like it's the weather we're discussing!"

The boy shrugged, smiling faintly, "M 3-3-6-9 said that us younger ones were so calm about it because it was the world that we were born into. We don't know any other type of living, so this is normal to us. I'm already twelve, so the time was coming for me to be terminated. It's just what happens."

Tricia shook her head, "That's not how it works!" she seemed almost hysterical when she said it, like she was trying to banish the thought form her head, "You're just a baby. You should be at school with a bunch of friends, and come home to your parents, and be tucked into bed at night, maybe even read to! Not this, this . . . " and here she was interrupted by her coworker, who was emerging from the wreckage with a little girl of about eight and one the same age as the boy with him.

Panting, he set the smallest one on the ground before turning to Tricia, "It's bad in there, Trish. It's really bad. I don't know what the fuck went on in here, but we have to get these kids out of here, right now." And with that he picked the girls up and headed off camera, where the sounds of a car door opening came. Tricia looked at the boy and nodded, opening her arms for him, so that she could help him into the car.

The boy shook his head, sighing. "It's too late. This entire time I've had a pain in my chest; my blood it stilling into my lungs." Almost to prove his point, a hacking cough broke him off, spewing blood the color of thin tar onto his lips, where he whipped it away. "I couldn't have lived too long anyways; like I said, I'm twelve already. Everything that's been done to me over the years has left my body too weak to live for more than a few hours outside of the containment chambers."

"Oh, god," Tricia sobbed, stepping towards him, "this can't happen; you're just a kid. We can get you help. We'll go to the hospital right now; it's only half an hour away. We can get you there." She gestured desperately towards the car, her tears falling in thick tracks to her chin.

The boy smiled, his face lighting up angelically, "its okay, Mrs. I've been ready for this for a long time. I've even wished for it on occasion. "It just sucks that I have to die right when I find someone who cares two shits about me." Tricia sobbed, running her hands up and down the boy's arms.

Finally, though, at the insistence of her coworker, she left the boy against that wall, holding herself close as she walked out of the camera's view. Seconds later, the car peeled out, spraying dirt and rubble around them, temporarily hiding the dying boy from view. As the child watched them leave, his eyes grew dimmer, until, with a last sigh, his head dropped to his chest, giving the camera a good view of his fully dilated eyes.

"Oh, my god," Storm gasped, drawing the eyes of the mesmerized children to her and away from the screen. Standing from her perch on the arm of the couch, where she had been during the duration of the horrific film, she commanded that all children under the age of fourteen go to their rooms, and not try to get any information on what they had just seen. When the room had cleared mostly, she collapsed unto the couch's now empty seats.

"What do we do?" She asked no one in particular, "If this starts a war, we don't have the resources to stop it. Not after everything that's happened recently."

Logan and Warren let out quavering breaths, gazes still caught on the lax face of the young boy on screen. "I don't know," Logan said slowly, "But we have to find out everything that we can about this. Knowing what we do right now, I'm tempted to start a fight with the first human I see, and I know better. Imagine what someone who isn't invested in peace would do right now."

Warren nodded, looking worried, "I hope not too many people focused in on the cure part. My dad already has to hide from the first fallout; if this brings anymore attention to him . . ."

Leech sat up, "Oh, yeah," he said, looking worried, "What am I supposed to do? Enough mutants already want to kill me for helping to make the first cure. If they used my DNA to make this one . . ."

Storm stood up again, her hands flying all over the place, "Don't worry, Jimmy! You will be fine here; we will never let anything hurt you."

"Yeah, Kid," Logan said gruffly, wanting to soothe their newest charge, "We beefed up security so that no one can come anywhere near her without us knowing."

Leech shook his head, "That's fine, but if they're trying to find a better way to make the cure, they'll need me to do it. Mine is the DNA base for the cure, since I'm the most powerful reverser. If someone wants to make something more powerful than the cure, they have to have my tissues to do it; without it, the synthesized DNA won't last long enough to be produced in any kind of large scale."

Storm frowned, "What do you mean?"

Leech sighed, "I am the cure. Each vial of the cure has to have at least a sixty/forty ratio of my DNA. That being said, with only synthesized DNA, the affect would die off almost immediately, and never be strong enough for anyone over a class three, or with serious physical mutations. That's why it took so long for Mr. Worthington to make enough to be mass-produced."

"So they took your blood to use in their cure?" Bobby asked with revulsion in his voice.

Leech nodded, "And my skin and hair. If it weren't for Mr. Worthington the cure would have been produced a whole lot quicker, but he and Dr. Rao weren't going to allow the techs to take more from me than I could grow back naturally in a week's time. They only allowed for the normal amount of blood donated by the average person to be taken, and skin grafts from my left shoulder and right thigh were only taken sparingly, if at all. The hair they just agreed to have shaved off, to prevent it from going to waste and to keep the techs happy."

"How could you stand it," Bobby asked, frowning.

Leech shrugged, glancing back at the screen, where the young boy still lay, "It wasn't so bad. I had anything that I wanted. I didn't have parents or friends, but I had everything else I could want."

As Bobby was fixing to ask something else, motion flashed on screen, and, to the horror of everyone watching, another child crawled from the smoking rubble.

This one, a girl about fifteen, stood still for a long time, looking from the boy on the ground to the camera in front of him, to the tire tracks. "Well," she said, "I guess I missed something while I slept."

Walking forward, she dug in the dead kid's shirt, finding dog-tags similar to the ones that Logan wore. "H 2-2-1-3, just turned twelve yesterday." She sighed looking down at him, "Hell-of-a birthday present, huh? The first bit of freedom that you've ever had. Gonna have to thank M 3-4-6-8 when you see him next."

Then she took up the camera, pointing it towards the ruins. "This," she said, venom in her voice, "Is the research facility that is owned by one Keith Stryker. Inside here more terror and death has happened than I would has ever wanted to have seen. I hope that someone finds this and uses it to its full potential, and makes all of the assholes that escaped 3-4-6-8 suffer like nothing they did to us."

With that, she started to walk away, pointing the camera towards the ground so that it could see her clawed feet walking away from the destruction, toward the road that the camera crew went.

"By the way," she said, "My name is Jennifer. I was captured a year ago in the undergrounds of New York. Three of my friends, Michael, Jordan, and Juan were killed in this hell." She paused and pointed the camera to the shrugs surrounding the building. "Oh, god damn," she cussed, taking in the moving of the bushes branches, "They're fucking back to pick up the pieces." And then she ran; she had barely gotten a couple of feet when automatic shots rang out, catching her twice in the chest and a couple of times in the legs and once in the arm. As she fell to the ground, the camera swung around to catch her attacker; a soldier in camouflage who was standing in the bushes with several other troops, more coming up behind them to enter the clearing. Several peeled off to go and check of the boy laying dead on the ground a couple of feet away, while others started to secure the perimeter.

Before anyone could reach the girl, though, she put her hand of the camera and phased out, cloaking everything in black and odd flashes of color for several seconds before she reappeared in some kind of internet café, where she handed the camera to the first person to reach her, to whom she told, "Take this and make sure that it is seen." Gasping, she lay down on the floor, "Make sure," she breathed, "that it gets out."

The startled man nodded repeatedly, taking the Camera with him as he was pushed out of the way by a group of diners trying to help the girl. In a daze, he pulled out his phone and pressed a series of buttons. After the phone rang for a bit, he spoke into it, "Hey, Jigs? Get everything ready. I just got a file that I'm going to send you, okay?" And then the camera turned off, apparently from the man taking the memory ship out of it.

And then there was beeping, and the muffled voice of men arguing, when, almost as though the world hadn't just been splintered, Bart Bedsole came back, face ashen and slightly green. "This has been a channel ten update, and we implore you to wait for the Presidential address that is to come on at exactly eight thirty tonight." Here he paused, "And may god have mercy on the souls of whoever had anything to do with that travesty."

And then cartoons came back on, but they might as well have not been there at all, because all anyone could see was the images of those ravaged children.

The silence was overwhelming, and it took longer than normal for it to be broken, and when it was, it was with something that could change all of their positions in the coming war;

"Do you think," Bobby said in a pained whisper, "That it was John that caused that fire?"

* * *

><p>And that is the first chapter, redone. This wasn't going to be part of the story, but I just didn't like the way that the original first chapter went down. Or how short it was.<p>

Anyways, Read and review, please.

= Bandon

PS If you get confused, or need an explanation, just PM me your questions. Or review them to me. Whichever you are more comfortable with.

These are the ones that I have been asked so far:

1) Why don't you put the camera portions in italics?

Answer: I want this to be almost exactly like it would be in a regular novel or in a movie; it either of those, the author would expect the reader to understand the flow of what is going on. When it is in a camera POV, you should just think of it was sitting on your couch watching television, not like a flashback. The flash back parts of this story WILL be in a different typr of text (Bold or italics, not decided)

2) Is this going to be a torture fic?

Answer: No. There may be some things that happen in this fiction that some of the weaker members of our audience may consider torture, and there will be material that I consider torture and that others would not, but yes, it will be in here. I will give warnings if I think anything borders on it, and if you do not want to read it, PM me and I will give you a summary of the chapter so that you don't get behind.

3) Will there be slash?

Answer: Yes. Yes, there is going to be slash. I don't want flames here; I have no marshmellows, and I am not in the mood to piss all over you for starting a fire. Keep it off my page. If you like the story, but don't want to see slash, PM me, and I will give you the important details, minus the slashiness. I'm not trying ot say 'suffer through slash or don't read good fiction' just that I am a lesbian, and that I tend to slash. I am not fond of hetrosexual stories, but I still read some of them because they are good; I just skim the icky parts.

4) Are there going to be hetrosexual pairings?

Answer: Yes. But not in a 'You took him from her, so I make her go out with him to make everyone have a partner' kind of way. Just in something that would fit. If you don't want to read the hetro parts, PM me and I will sumerize it for you.

5) Are there going to be an Original characters in the story?

Answer: Yes, because I can't do it without them. I want to try to keeo as much as I can to the original flow of the story, but I will do what will make my story the best it can be.

These are the most important questions that I have been asked, but if you have more, then just PM me or leave a review and I wil answer you as soon as I can!


	2. An Address to the People

This is the second chapter in my X-Men fanfiction!

I own nothing but original characters and the specific plot to which I write. Luvs and kisses!

* * *

><p>Storm sat up quickly, her eyes wild, "No!" she screamed, frantic, "I'm sure that John didn't have anything to do with this!"<p>

Bobby's eyes grew sad, "So," he whispered, "You do think that he died at Alcatraz?" The pain-filled 'because of me' was left unsaid, but everyone in the room heard it loud and clear, as though Bobby had yelled it with all of his strength.

Storm looked uncertain; the only way to say that John had survived the incident on Alcatraz was to assume that someone who wasn't on the bridge picked him up and took him somewhere. This, of course, meant that someone who wasn't a part of the Brotherhood or the X-Men had taken the unconscious John away from the scene of destruction before Jean was killed, and since the only way that _that_ could have happened is if it had been someone from the military who had taken him, so . . .

Logan, sensing the distress between Bobby and Storm coughed, motioning Warren, Storm, and Hank McCoy out of the room with him.

Once in the hall, they shooed several of the younger students to their rooms, and warned them again not to try to find any information about what the older children had just seen. Logan let out a tired sigh, "What the hell do we do, Storm? Bobby just stopped checking the list of confirmed dead a couple of weeks ago, now that this incident has thrown up the dust again. . ."

Logan didn't need to finish his thoughts; everyone there had seen the way that Bobby had searched deep into the night on the X-Man's computer systems for any hint of the other mutant's presence, the way he slept in his friends' rooms instead of his own as a way of avoiding the place where he and John used to live. Warren exchanged a look with Beast before saying, "But isn't he one of the people that are on the most wanted list right now? Didn't he try to kill Jimmy and my father? I didn't know that he was liked here; I thought that that was why he left to join the Brotherhood?"

Strom and Logan both started talking at once; "But that doesn't mean that . . ." Logan began, only to be cut off by Storm; "He is just a child. He left because he was tricked into it by Magneto. John was just . . . confused. God," she said, "I remember . . ." here she paused as memories she had buried came rush to the surface; John, a frightened street kid in L.A. being brought into the fold at Xavier's, his constant fights with the kids that got him into so much trouble, even though everyone was fond of him in spite, or because of his fierce nature; everything, everything that she had pushed to the back of her mind when John had left them to join the ranks of the Brotherhood. "He's just a kid." She repeated, voice cracking, "If he was in there, in that hell hole, I don't know how he could have survived. He was so broken when we brought him here; I know, I know in my bones, that if he were hurt like that again he wouldn't survive it."

Logan looked away from Storm's tears and patted her on the back awkwardly, hoping that someone would say something soon, if only to break the tension hanging in the air.

Neither Warren nor Beast seemed inclined to do anything other than hang their heads as they thought on Storm's words, clearly ashamed of their condemnation.

Finally, though, Storm got herself together, whipping her eyes dry on her lace shirt and holding herself rigid, "We have to find him," she said fiercely, "And we have to bring him back home; if not just for his sake than for Bobby as well." She looked at the door that separated them from the older children, her eyes fearful, "He won't be able to handle it, if John really is dead. He still blames himself for what happened out on the island. He still blames himself for choosing to stay on the plane with Marie rather than go with him to help us at the lake. He never says it, but I can tell." She looked between Logan, Warren, and Beast, holding their gazes until she saw the same conviction in them; they would find their wayward youth and bring him back to the place that he belonged.

Storm looked at her watch, anxious for eight thirty to roll around. Sighing in aggravation, she said, "So much has happened since the news cast started, and it's only been twenty minutes! If the Presidential address if prompt then we still have another ten minutes of speculation!"

Logan huffed, muttering something that sounded like 'I need a beer' under his breath to no one in particular. Warren and Beast both looked aghast, since neither imbibed, and gave Logan very critical looks before opening to door to the television room and entering, followed by their colleagues.

Every student but Bobby looked up, and then immediately back to the screen, almost as though afraid that if they took their eyes off of the screen then they would miss some pivotal bit of information.

Storm, Logan, and Marie shared one couch, while Jimmy, Kitty, and Peter shared the other, Hank, Warren, and their newest students, Jessica, Megan, Robert, and Vanessa each sat on the various chairs strewn around the room; it was only Bobby that sat n the floor, sitting so close to the television that it was hard for the others to see, but no one told him to move, each of them sensing his desperation.

For a tense ten minutes no one talked, or moved, or made a single sound, as far as anyone was concerned. They sat in solemn silence waiting to hear the leader of their nation justify what they had just seen; give some reason behind the senseless violence that they had been witness to.

And just as the tension was at its breaking point, they flipped the channel to CNN in time for the sports highlights to be ending. With a slight flickering, the television began to show a crowded room in which a podium had hastily been placed. It was into this room that the president walked, his shoulders squared. Stopping in front of the podium, he gave a cough and took a quick sip of water, apparently needing the extra seconds to gather himself.

"My fellow Americans," He said; his manner hesitant, "It is with great regret that I step into your homes tonight." He looked up at the camera, and everyone could see the weight of recent events in his eyes, "I wish that my time as your president could have been different; what with one catastrophe immediately following the other and no reprieve in which for me to lead this nation to its fullest." He paused, "And, yet, I still feels as though I have done my best for the people of our nation; all of our people. Each person that has been born of our country is a person that I have sought to help during my single term as president. And until last night, I had thought that I had done a fine job at that; but the incident on which I must speak tonight has shaken that belief."

He paused again, gathering himself, "As many of you know, and for those of you who don't, there had come to our attention a grave injustice." The President mopped his brow with a handkerchief, "At sometime around dusk on the second of January, a fire was started at a facility in Backwoods, Nevada. This 'facility'" he spat the word, "was run by one Keith Stryker, whose father, William Stryker, was once a government employee. It seems that the apple did not fall far from the tree when concerning the Stryker's. William Stryker, a onetime Nobel Peace Prize recipient, was found to have been in charge of a privately funded laboratory where unspeakable experiments were carried out." President Johnston paused again, his hands shaking, "And with the fire that brought attention to Backwoods, Nevada, a deserted little hole in the ground, we have found that Keith Stryker was much more deranged than his father."

Everyone at Xavier's blanched, sick with imaginings as to what could be more horrific than the things that went on in Stryker senior's laboratory.

Johnston continued, oblivious to the bomb that he had just dropped on the well informed mutants at Xavier's, "Keith Stryker was appointed the secretary for mutant affairs after the promotion of Hank McCoy to Ambassador, and he was given a rather large budget with which to help fund projects that would help human-mutant relations; community centers and the like. But, with misappropriated funds, he built a large compound in Nevada, where he continued his last father's work, and many other unspeakable travesties."

Here he clicked a remote, which lowered a screen slightly to his left. It was to this screen that he spoke next, "As you see," he said, unable or unwilling to turn around and face the camera, "we have evidence of a grave wrongdoing." Finally, as though putting that information out there was a shield, he turned, "Tonight, I ask that everyone watching from their homes take all of the information given into consideration before acting upon the rage that I know you must be feeling right now." He clicked the remote again, and a picture of hundreds of people on a photographer's bleacher came up, "Here," he said, "is a photograph taken In May of 2000. It is believed that these people that you see here are the workers at the facility that was burnt down on January second sometime in the night. If anyone recognizes any of the faces here, please contact the number below." As a number flashed on screen, the picture grew larger, and the camera zoomed in on the individual faces, giving several seconds to each.

When the camera got to the second or third down, Leech cried out, almost falling out of his chair in his rush to get to the pen and pencil next to the phone. "I – I know that man!" He shouted, pointing to the man currently on screen, a pointed faced white man with bad teeth that he flashed at the camera. "He used to work at the labs with Mr. Worthington!"

Warren took a closer look, and he too gave a shriek, pulling his notepad out of his pants pocket and staring more intently at the faces the passed by, occasionally writing on the pad.

After every face had been zoomed in on, the camera again focused on Johnston. "As you see, there were quite a number of people involved in this mad venture. Again, if you have any information on the people in this picture, please call immediately. He clicked the remote again, and a similar picture popped up, but this one was only of security guards, all of whom seemed to be equipped with a gun and a baton, which they sported proudly.

Storm almost hissed at the screen, enraged by the smug looks on the beefy men's faces.

The Camera did the same procession, and the president gave the same bequest, but when the camera focused again on the president, it took longer than before for him to click for the next one, "From this point on," he said resignedly, "the footage that will be shown is the remains of security tapes and files kept at the facility. We urge parents to be advised; this will be graphic, and I cannot in good conscious allow anyone to watch this without knowing beforehand that it will more than likely be the most horrific images that many of you have ever seen." Finally, he clicked the remote, and a picture of two young boys, both about the age of eight, strapped to metal tables in what looked like an operation room. The Camera zoomed in on their terrified faces and then to the doctors and nurses surrounding them. "We believe that in this slide these two boys, one human and one mutant, where given strands of the 'cure' to the purpose of studying the effects it can have on both mutants and on humans." The President clicked the remote again, "Now in this picture . . . "

Almost an hour later, everyone still sat in the television room, watching the President flick from grotesque photo to grotesque photo with no end in sight.

Another twenty minutes passed when, with one final click, the President settled on a photo that was almost too distorted to see. "This is the last picture we have for you to see from the facility's cameras." Johnston said hesitantly, "If you look closely, you can see the fire mutant that we think is responsible for the inferno that alerted us to the facility." Bobby, who had already given up on catching a glimpse of John, started paying attention again, working his way back towards the screen through the others who had crowded around it. "The young man that can be seen in this photo is a member of the Brotherhood known only as Pyro."

Everyone gasped or made some noise of shock but Bobby, who merely stared at the picture for all he was worth, trying to make a different face visible from the fire than the one that he knew so well.

"At the end of last year, as you are all aware, there was a skirmish at Alcatraz Island, in which members of a mutant task force known as the X-Men alongside members of the armed forces, clashed with members of the Brotherhood, lead by Magneto." He paused, "After the battle, soldiers were sent to the wreckage to try to distinguish a clear picture of what happened there." He paused again, adjusting the neck of his tie, "Upon their arrival, they found several badly injured mutants and security guards afloat. It was in this mess that Pyro was apprehended."

"No," Bobby whispered, his worst fears realized, "God, no." But his request was lost in the flurry of hushed conversations taking place around the room. Everyone was talking to their neighbor, and though no one was talking especially loud, Storm still had to call for silence when the President continued.

"Pyro, we had known, was the second in command of the Brotherhood, after Magneto's previous second, Mystique, was cured. It was because of this that we did what we thought was best; we had Pyro put to death." The reporters, who had stayed mainly silent until now, erupted with questions and accusations about putting a teenager to death without a trial, even if he was a mutant.

"Now I know," The President continued over the hub, "That putting someone to death without a trial is in complete disregard to the constitution, but there was more than enough evidence to prove that Pyro had committed seven known murders, and been an accomplice to at least a dozen more; his guilt was irrefutable."

Nothing he said could conquer the flurried reporters, all of whom were talking on cell phones, sending texts, and screaming questions at him.

"The Youth in question," Johnston said loudly, silencing the mayhem, "was severely injured by the events at Alcatraz Island, and every doctor we had look at him told us that his death was inevitable, and that the only thing that could come from us keeping him alive was excruciating pain and, if he survived the first year, total paralysis. It was these factors and more that prompted my decision."

Here, the screen flicked to pictures of John; of him with the Brotherhood, him shopping at the store, his having lunch with a very attractive girl.

"We do not know the name of this criminal, but it was not necessary to end his life in the fashion that I had planned for him."

No one had noticed, but Bobby had started to make terrible keening noises, as though he where a fatally wounded animal.

"He was scheduled to be executed on March 6th of 2010, and, as far as the records show, he was put to death by lethal injection at exactly ten o'clock at night. There was no incident reported for that night, and, as far as what we could find, Pyro died peacefully and was buried in an unnamed plot in an undisclosed graveyard."

Storm wanted to throw up; the thought of a child that she had taught being put to rest as an unnamed criminal. . .

"Through tireless efforts, we have discovered what actually happened; Keith Stryker and men in his employ falsified documents and gave untrue accounts as witnesses. It was then the Pyro was taken to a secure facility that William Stryker had owned before his death. It is here that we believe that Stryker placed Pyro into horrific experiments that caused him to heal from the wounds that would normally have killed him, and then took him to the Backwoods facility, where he was kept for the duration, until he broke out on the second of January. More than a thousand corpses have been found among the remains and buried in the surrounding area, and there may be still more left to find. This is the most grievous case of mass murder that has ever happened in American history, and it is one that is sure to shake the fragile peace that can be found right now. But if we all come together-"

But he couldn't finish his sentence; an unseen force crumpled his microphone, smashing it to bits.

"A very touching speech, Mr. President. 'We should all band together now in the face of such travesty."

Everyone looked around for the source of the ringing voice, but none could be found.

"Identify yourself!" The president shouted to the room.

"Gladly," and the screen on which John's picture had still been went blank, then, to the shock and horror of everyone at Xavier's, Magneto's face appeared. "Good evening, Mr. President, I assume that I need no introduction?"

"Erik Lencher!" The President gasped, glancing at his microphone in terror.

Magneto laughed, "Now now. You know that _that_ name doesn't apply anymore; the 'cure' that was injected into me has worm away, leaving me just as powerful as I was before."

The reporters started to shout questions at him. Magneto raised his gloved hand for silence, which he got with considerable ease. "That was what the facility that my Pyro burned down was for, after all; to make a stronger 'cure' to take the powers away from mutants like me."

His smile fell, replaced with a fierce snarl, "A facility that was funded by your government. A facility where my Pyro was kept for almost six months. What happened there is your fault, Mr. President, and I and my armies will rise again with more hatred fueling us than you could ever comprehend."

The President seemed lost for words, his mouth flopping open and closed like a fish out of water.

"Oh," Magneto said, as though in an afterthought, "To you X-Men out there who left a seventeen year old boy for dead on a god forsaken island; be prepared for the worst to come. I will send an emissary to you soon that will tell you exactly what to expect from me."

Then the screen went blank, and the crowd fell silent. With start, the President motioned for the camera's to stop filming.

The screen went blank, and everyone just starred at it so intently that, when the doorbell rang, they all crashed to the floor, startled out of their seats.

Storm rushed from the room, only to return seconds later with a young girl held in her arms.

"Magneto," the girl said in an adorably soft voice, "Sends his regards."

* * *

><p>And that is the end of chapter two!<p>

Thanks to all of you who reviewed/fav'd/alerted/PM'd me!

R and R!

Hope you like. I was going to make it longer, but I ran out of computer time for the week, and didn't think that you all would want to wait another couple of days for me to upload!


	3. Lost in the Dark

CL9311095: Bwahaha. I birthed hatred! Anyways, I haven't been able to see the new one yet, and it is eating my soul. (Thank you for rubbing it in!) Since I'm chillin' in poverty, I haven't had the money to go see it yet, and since I only have internet for the space of time that it takes for me to upload something, I don't have time to watch it illegally. ;{ Now you've made me sad. I'm going to try to make this as neutral as I can; I might be able to see the movie sometime this month, and will try to adjust my story accordingly. Thanks for the review!

Tharrow: Thank you! Oh, and I had to make up my own timeline for this, since the movie time line wasn't cooperating with me. (He he) I'm going to high light the timeline thingy later. Maybe in the next chapter? I don't really know yet.

Jemlou: Thank you! Yeah, you're supposed to be confused. It's one of those 'Is-he-or-isn't-he' kind of things. I don't know yet if I'm going to have this be a 'Bobby-remembers-john-in-his-death- fic or a John-is-alive-and-making-bobby-miss-him fic. It's up in the air; whatever happens, happens.

Emeralden Rapley: Thank you! Your review made me laugh. ;}

Lilgurlgreen: Thank you very much! I hope you continue to like my story!

She Killed Stars: Aw. Your review made me blush. Thank you for falling in love with my story!

I love to get reviews; most readers underestimate what a review can do for the author. Reading reviews just make my day. They also make me want to write more. And that's not blackmail; it's the truth. When you pay a complement to someone, they tend to want to repeat the behavior that got them praised.

Thanks to all of the people who reviewed my story! You make this chapter possible!

* * *

><p>Last time, on 'Days of our mutants' : "Magneto," the girl said in an adorably soft voice, "Sends his regards."<p>

* * *

><p>BANDON-MAKES-A-START<p>

* * *

><p>"What the fuck do you mean, 'Magneto sends his regards.'?" Logan snarled.<p>

Storm shot him a withering look before she set the child on the couch that had just been vacated. "Now, sweetie, do you know where you are?"

The girl nodded her head, blond Shirley Temple curls flying in an arch of gold; "I'm in Westchester. I'm here to deliver a message to the X-Men that live here."

Storm took a sharp breath, "And what's your name? Where are your parents?"

The girl cocked her head to the side, "I'm not supposed to tell you anything but what Magneto wanted me to. They said that it wasn't any of your business."

Storm smiled indulgingly at the girl, "But surely they expect you to be called something? We can't just refer to you as 'Hey, girl' whenever we talk to you."

The girl was clearly not fooled by Strom's sweetness; "It won't work," she said, "Your little mind tricks. That's why Magneto sent me instead of someone older; I can see clearly through any kind of trap or falsehood."

Storm looked slightly affronted, but didn't tell the girl anything else on the subject. "What did Magneto want for you t tell us, Little Girl?"

"That there is no chance of peace anymore. Before this he had been respecting Charles' final wishes, but now that the humans have gone and created a catastrophe, it is free game."

Storm and the others exchanged glances.

"But," the girl continued, "Magneto invited you to try; he is planning a personnel swap. Anyone that is willing is invited." Here she cast a repugnant glance towards Marie, "Even if you are human."

Storm coughed, using it as a motion of warning for the riled up teen. "What does he mean, 'a personnel swap'?"

The girl sighed, "He means," she enunciated carefully, "that anyone on this side who wants to have contact with his side can, and vice versa. We have some new recruits that want to see the other side, and Magneto doesn't want to send them here without insurance."

Then she looked between Leech and Marie, "He also wants to exchange information. He knows that you want to know everything that we do on John, and you know that he wants to know about the 'cure' and the one that helped create it."

Storm shook her head, perplexed, "Magneto knows that we would never allow someone to go into the Brotherhood. It would be too dangerous."

The girl shook her head again. "A nonaggression pact is in effect right now. Everyone on both sides of the argument are in a standstill, deciding what sides that they will take for the war. Since this has come out, a lot of humans are joining with Magneto or starting third parties. No one knows what they want anymore."

Storm sighed, thinking furiously about what the girl said. "How long," she asked hesitantly, "Do we have to decide?"

The girl shrugged, "The meeting is tomorrow at high noon. I have to coordinates if you wish to go, and I will stay here and filter threats and gather Intel. "

Before Storm could ask her what she meant, the girl got off the couch and opened the backpack that she was carrying. "This file," she said, pulling out a disc, "is what I put together for your viewing pleasure. I brought it to show to Bobby, whichever one of you that is."

Everyone looked at Bobby, who was still red in the face from crying. "What's on it?" he asked, voice hoarse.

The girl gave a wicked laugh, the humor cold, "Something that you deserve to see."

And with the push of a button, the disc was into the DVD player, and with another, Bobby was staring at the face of the boy that he had betrayed.

"John," Bobby whispered, collapsing to the floor in front of the television to stare at a photo of the fire mutant smiling. "He looks so happy." And, just as he said it, a picture of a mangled body replaced the other one. Bobby flinched away, cowering from the image as though it would harm him by looking at it.

"That's what happened to one of the soldiers at Alcatraz that was left there by his friends." The girl said, voice cutting. "I heard one of the new recruits saying that John looked something like that when he was brought into the hospital where he was healed. That he was almost dead when he came in." Storm rushed to the television, but Bobby got there first; he took the DVD out and fled, running away before anyone could take the disc from him.

"Goddamn it," Logan snarled at the girl, who just giggled innocently at him.

Storm didn't even comment on Logan's foul mouth. "He's going to torture himself with that." And then she was gone, off to try to find wherever he had hidden himself.

Hank let out a shaking breath as he finally looked away from the screen that was now blank, "Young lady" he said, reprimand in his voice, "that was a very cruel thing that you did right now; very irresponsible. That young man has had a very hard time coping with the events that took place on that island, and giving him more material to torture himself with was brutally irresponsible."

The girl didn't look contrite in the least. "It is what he deserves. He is the one that left John to die, after all. If he wanted him dead, he could have at least have done a good job, so that the hell that fell on john wouldn't have come to pass."

"Then if he survived maybe he deserved the hell that he got." Marie shouted, rising to her feet to storm out of the room, off to help Storm look for Bobby.

The girl hissed at Marie's retreating back, her pale blue eyes snapping fire. "That bitch," she hissed as Marie turned a corner, "is getting on my last nerve."

Warren, always one to avoid an argument, cleared his throat. "Okay, kid," he said, "Let's find you somewhere to stay until tomorrow, okay? We can talk to you about what is going to be happening later. Right now, everyone needs to get settled in." He motioned for all the kids in the room to go to their bedrooms, since it was already past ten and they, apparently, had an early morning tomorrow.

With that they dispersed, leaving only Logan and Hank in the television room.

Logan sighed, "This is going to be a long night."

Hank just nodded his head, rubbing his already tired eyes.

* * *

><p>BANDON-MAKES-A-BREAK<p>

* * *

><p>"What are we going to do?" Kitty asked Peter.<p>

Peter just shook his head, nervous about the thought going on in Kitty's mind.

"I mean," She continued, "If Johnny was caught and put there, what is he going to be like now?"

"I don't know," Peter sighed, his soft voice at odds with his huge body, "We can just hope that some part of him has remained sane through that hell."

Kitty's eyes watered; she remembered how John used to be, so cock-sure of himself but still not arrogant. "I just want everything to go back to the way that it was before those men broke in back in '08. Before John left and all of this shit started to happen. It's already 2011, but it still feels like John just left, you know?"

Peter nodded, "He was a punk, but he was part of our family; it's hard to accept it when family leaves. We just have to be here for him when he comes back, is all."

Kitty gave him a watery smile, and said, "Yeah. We'll be here to pick up the pieces when he comes back."

Peter patted Kitty on the head, nodding.

As they began to walk down their hallway, Kitty allowed her hand to twine with Peter's, relieved that they could hold each other up like that.

As they parted, Kitty said, "I'm going tomorrow; to get information on John."

Peter smiled at his strong willed kitten, "I know."

Kitty grinned at him, "You too?"

"Yeah, me too." And Peter disappeared into his room, leaving Kitty to shut her door and embrace the darkness of her soul in privacy.

"He won't be the same," Kitty whispered to herself, "Once you look into darkness, there is no way back to the light." And she fell onto her bed, heart aching with the dark knowledge bred from years on the street. "God, John, I hope that you died in there; if not, you'll tear apart our fragile peace."

And she drifted off, nightmares filled with pain and sadness leeching into her soul.

* * *

><p>BANDON-MAKES-A-BREAK<p>

* * *

><p>Morning came early, but everyone had been up for hours, talking and planning, getting things ready if they did end up going to Magneto's meeting.<p>

Storm couldn't believe how quickly word had spread; Kurt had arrived late last night to be a part of the exchange, and Warren's father had shown up as well.

They had already confirmed who was going, and it was a great deal more of her people than she would have agreed upon, under normal circumstances, as it was, fifteen people were packed and ready; Warren II and Warren III, Leech, Jessica, Vanessa, Meagan, and Robert, Logan, Marie, Kitty, Peter, Bobby, Kurt, Hank, and herself.

Sighing wearily, Storm looked at the suits that they had had to create for everyone going, even Mr. Worthington II, who had protested the necessity of it, but had reluctantly agreed when they had insisted. Bobby's had to be taken in by quite a lot; Storm hadn't noticed how much weight he had lost since that last battle on Alcatraz. She looked at him now, her face calm in spite of her inner turmoil, taking in the way that his eyes had sunken into his face, casting shadows under them that made him look so much more tired than Storm would like for him to. "Bobby," She said, drawling the boy's attention away from the bowl of cereal that he wasn't eating, "I want you to eat that all before we go, or I will have Jessica and Vanessa take you to the top of Everest and leave you there."

The tone had been light, but Storm was serious; Bobby didn't need to lose any more weight. Bobby nodded and began to actually fill the spoon before bringing it to his mouth in his usual parody of eating.

Storm sighed again and looked away, damning that little girl for telling Bobby ahead of time where the meeting was to take place; had she not, Storm would make Bobby stay at the Mansion while they went out to the meeting.

The aforementioned little hell-spawn was sitting on a high chair one of the other kids had made for her, eating a pop tart and singing happily under her breath.

Storm wanted to spit at her, but knew that it was immature. Logan, who had never been able to grow up, glared at her as he ate his cereal on the other side of the room, flicking his glances between her and Bobby, clearly wanting to say something rude, but knowing that, in a time of peace, anything could spark confrontation; most especially the tears of adorable little eight year olds.

* * *

><p>BANDON-MAKES-A-BREAK<p>

* * *

><p>It took everyone an hour to get on the plane, and even then they had to go back twice for things that people had forgotten in their haste. I was a quarter to noon before they reached a secluded part of Texas where they landed. Storm looked around, seeing nothing that would fit Magneto's flare for the dramatic; only a few farms in the distance on all sides of them showed even the semblance of life.<p>

"Where the fuck are we?" Logan snarled at the little girl, making her jump.

She scowled at him, then at the teenagers that had laughed at her. "They're coming to get us; you just have to wait for them to come up."

"Up?" Logan questioned her, looking warily at the ground.

She nodded, going back to the trance that Logan had interrupted earlier. She hummed a couple of notes and stood back, giving the spot of earth she had been on a wide breadth.

Before Logan could ask, the ground fell downward, into a deep tunnel. The firm ground that they had been on turned to quick sand before they could think of moving, and they were caught; haven sunken into the earth only to have it harden again into stone.

Two people came out of the tunnel, one wearing a weird tunic and the other something straight off a Paris runway. Runway girl came up first, taking the little beast into her arms and speaking to her in some language that they couldn't understand.

The other one, shorter than the first and more stout, stood off to the side, starring at the people that he had caught.

"Is dis da groop?" He asked in a foreign accent to the girl.

She nodded, and started to talk to the man in what sounded like German. The man nodded after a short while and waved his hand; releasing his prisoners from the vice like hold.

Logan was up first, grabbing tat mans shirt in one hand and his throat in another.

"Aught, aught, aught," the man tutted, "You mustn't break dee treaty, mustn't you?"

Logan growled at him, but let him fall away.

The girl coughed, "We're going to be late, Mole, quit playing with them. Magneto wants this over with as soon as possible."

Mole sighed heavily, as though reigning in his fun cost him a great deal, "But I culd not rezest, leetle one."

He frowned at her frown and gave another sigh, motioning everyone down into the hole. They followed, after exchanging furtive glances, but Storm kept herself tense, in case the little man wanted to have more 'fun.'

They went down for a very long time, the only light emitted from the runway's hand.

It wasn't until they came to a great set of doors, though, that Strom noticed how cold it had gotten down here, how damp; the chill of it hitting her bones in a thrumming blow.

Their hearts pounded as they thought of all the things that could be on the other side of that door; what pain or joy it would bring. Storm regretted coming here, to this miserable place.

As the door began to open, and the light went out, Storm let out a gasp, her powers building in the darkness.

"Shh," the girl whispered, "it'll be fine, just wait."

Storm didn't move, didn't breathe as they stood there, the doors already open and everything silent. Then it started, a deep, resonating sound, like the toll of a gong. Light appeared again, in a blinding flash, and a cavern appeared; twice the size of a football field in both width and length, and extending up from her view, making her feel as though they were in a building without a roof, not a cave who knew how deep underground.

She took in her surroundings, the empty room, the cold steel floor. She started backing up, only to have the hole that they had just gone through close up, pushing her and everyone else who had lingered into the cavern.

"It's a trap!" Logan cried and extended his claws, "They left us no way out!" As everyone reached out for each other, they were separated, thrown to the floor feet apart from each other and bound by metal restraints that appeared out of the ground.

Chaos ensued; everyone trying to get out of their bonds using their powers, or, in the cases of Marie and Warren II, their voices.

Kurt was the first to get free, disappearing in a gust of blue smoke. He burst into existence on top of Storm, moving to free her first out of the others. Just before his hand would have reached her, though, he was frozen in midair, held up by an unseen force.

"Now, now," Magneto said, sweeping into the room with his trademark cape and helmet, "That just won't do!"

He walked into the center of the room, using his powers to draw the others to him, binding them to the ground a few short strides from him. "I invited you here under a nonaggression pact, remember?"

"Then let us go!" Marie shouted at him, fearful.

Magneto tutted at her, "My dear girl, I will release you when I am quite sure that it is safe to." He did, however, move then all closer together and allow then to stand, even if they were still bound.

Magneto looked at Storm, who, last he knew, was the leader, "So you came, my dear. He said that you would not endanger the students, but I guess that he was wrong."

Strom growled at him, "We only came because that little beast that you sent had already given the coordinates out before we could decline." Strom knew that she would have come, even if the girl hadn't, but Magneto was right; she would not have endangered the children like this.

Magneto chuckled, looking at the little girl who stood slightly behind and to the left of them, "And how was your trip, Murmur? Did you learn what you set out to?"

The girl –Murmur, - nodded, walking into the room that Magneto had just left. Her voice came back at them from a distance, "I wouldn't let them up off the floor, though. Several of them are plotting your doom, and the rest aren't smart enough to."

Everyone growled at her, but it was clear who it was 'plotting his doom' and who were the people that she considered 'not smart enough' to be able to, since the ones that got most affronted made louder noises, clearly having taken insult to being called stupid.

Magneto laughed again, nodding in her direction, "Children," he said, "So very honest." He used his powers to move the X-Men to the other side of the room, giving them little space between each other, and still not removing the shackles.

"Mole, Radiant, would you please help Murmur call the others to us? There is much to do, and very little time in which to do it."

The two people that had helped them down the tunnel nodded and walked off into the same room where Murmur had disappeared, pushing the doors more open as a scattering of people started walking through it.

Storm began breathing faster, realizing that they would be bound in a room with an unknown number of people, and their defenses were in naught but shambles.

It was almost ten minutes that they stood there waiting, and Strom could already tell that this meeting was going to be quite different than she had planned.

Everyone was getting settled on his side when Magneto made chairs rise up from the ground, encasing them more comfortably into their bonds and putting them of different levels, according to their rank in the group; Logan, Warren III, Hank, and Storm were highest, with Bobby, Kitty, Peter, and Kurt on the next level, Leech, Robert, Vanessa, Meagan, and Jessica on the second to lowest, and Warren II and Marie on the lowest level, all fanned out in their specific spots; Meagan, Warren II, Leech, Warren III, Peter, Kitty, Jessica, Storm, Logan, Marie, Hank, Kurt, Robert, Bobby, and Vanessa, giving the group a disjointed look.

"Now," Magneto said, clapping his hands together, "our negotiations will begin."

Storm coughed, drawling Magneto's sharp gaze upon herself, "We will not trade anyone to you so that you can hurt them; I will let the students and teacher who are willing to barter themselves do so, but only under the condition that they will not be harmed while away from the school and in your care."

Magneto clucked his tongue at her, as though he were disappointed in her manners "You underestimate the level of my sincerity, Ms. Munroe. When I invited you and your members here, I swore that no harm would come to them- and if I am nothing else, I am a man of my word." Again, his eyes traveled over the small group of X-Men, where they landed upon Leech, where he sat between Logan and Warren. "I have asked you to bring that young man and your young Rogue today for a very specific purpose."

Warren, his eyes narrowed, curled a protective wing around Jimmy. Magneto let his eyes widen, "So," he drawled, "You have learned at least some level of control over yourself."

Leech shook his head, breath coming earnestly, his shockingly blue eyes fearful. "I can't really control it yet. Warren is just immune to my powers, since he has spent so much time with me since the testing began. It would take a large quantity of my blood running through his veins to cure Warren."

"You mean to say, then, that the only power you have can be nullified by prolonged exposure to you?" Magneto asked, the gears in his head clearly turning.

Leech nodded, biting his lower lip, "Now that I told you something that you longed to know, you tell us what we want to know; what do you know about John? What do you know about where he is now?"

And then it happened, Magneto's eyes, one moment cool as the metal he manipulated, the next scorching in their intensity. "What" he hissed, "would you like to know?" Though his questions had been directed at Leech, his gaze had traveled to Bobby, who stood alone, isolated between two people he barely knew. "Would you like to know who it was that left him, unconscious and defenseless on a little patch of rock during one of the most dangerous psy-storms that I have ever been witness to? Or do you want to know who it was that plucked his limp, mangled body out of the ocean?" Magneto's voice dropped to the most deadly of whispers, and, as he stared at Bobby, who, with each word hurled at him, had shrunken in upon himself, he continued, his voice ragged with emotion, "Or do you want to know how he was caged like an animal, branded like an animal," He paused, his breathing ragged, "used like an animal?"

Bobby screamed, as though those last four words were daggers in his soul, dropping down in his chair of steel, where he crouched, hugging his knees to his chest. But Magneto took no mercy on him. "But you know all of that already; I have no doubt that you have gleaned every bit of information that you could about what happened in that place from whomever you could." Here he glanced at Storm, who, during the entirety of Magneto's tirade, had sat silent in her grief. Looking at the faces of all of the X-Man, he persisted in a horrible parody of a stage-whisper "So I will tell you something that you don't know." Bobby shook his head; over and over he shook his head back and forth until it looked as though he would permanently disfigure himself with the act of denial. And as Magneto gave a bitter laugh, no one could doubt what information would echo through the cavernous room where they stood caught in a horrifying silence, "through that hell", Magneto said, voice gaining strength with each word, "it was not me that he wished would save him, it was not the X-Men whom he called upon in the dark of the night when his will to live was failing and his body and mind were desperate for the reprieve of death. Do you know who that was?" Bobby, still giving wordless cries of grief, started to plead with Magneto to stop this slow torture, pleading with him to not say what they knew was coming, "It was you who he thought of for all of those months locked up in that place! It was the thought of your touch that soothed his agony when he was brutalized! It was you that he held to his heart like a shield until, at long last, he perished under the weight of the realization that you weren't even looking for him! The realization that you had used him and thrown him away just like the people at that facility were going to do!"

Finally, He stopped, breathing ragged. Bobby crouched upon the chair, his hands clasped so tightly over his ears that his fingers strained with the effort, strange, broken mewling sounds coming from the deepest part of his throat. As Magneto regained his composure, he took in Bobby's disheveled appearance with apathy.

It wasn't until Bobby looked up from his stupor that Magneto chose to finish his work, "Do you know whose name fell from between battered lips as his life ended and his body went limp into the arms of death?"

And a sound like the breaking of dropped china filled the room as ice formed and fell all around them, sending shards into whoever was unlucky enough to be near them. Bobby starred, eyes open and unseeing, into the distance, John's name falling off of his lips like a prayer.

Storm screamed for him to get a grip on his powers, but her words were lost to the blizzard that was growing out of the young man, fueled by his overwhelming grief.

The air became heavy with frost, and skins began to blister from the cold, but still no one's powers, on either side of the divide, could penetrate the shield of ice forming around the young man; his body quickly turning to its crystallized state.

Strom feared that Bobby, who was already weak, would kill himself with this power surge, when, out of nowhere, the air warmed, fires roaring to life out of nothingness; melting the ice that had begun to freeze people into place, preventing them from running.

On the X-Men, the fire descended, covering their bodies, warming them but not burning them; it touched long enough to steam away the moisture, but when it was done with its job, it moved away instead of trying to consume the people that it had fallen on.

As fires raged in the cavern, a resounding whisper came, engulfing them, "Bobby!" it said, frightening in its intensity. "Bobby, calm down!"

Bobby, who had been fighting the warmth, stopped, starring upwards, "John!" he gasped, his breath ragged from screaming, "John, I'm here!"

And then he was gone, passed out in his chair, his frozen limbs thawing now that his powers were in the abyss of unconsciousness.

Strom took a deep breath, having slid out of her chair to sit awkwardly on the floor, the bonds of the chair still holding her upright.

Marie gasped, drawing the attention to her; she pointed up into the cavernous depths, where a small flame flicked and flared. It took Storm a moment to realize that it wasn't just a flame in the dark; it was a person wreathed in flames, falling through the darkness, plummeting downward with no intent to stop. Storm heard Maris scream, and she might have too, but it was impossible to tell in the chaos; people on both sides had started moving, trying to get away from the figure or go to it.

As the inflamed person came near the ground, Storm shrieked, but it was in vain; the person sent out a blast of fire, halting his descent mere inches from destruction.

Whoever it was had their back turned to them, but Storm could sear the hunch of those shoulders were familiar to her.

Agonizing seconds later, the person turned around. Strom gasped; his face was thinner, his hair was longer, but it was him.

"John," she whispered, breathless and shocked.

John looked at her, "No," he said, "John died. I'm pyro."

Strom didn't want to hear his words, but she could see that they were true; no glimmer of recognition could be seen in his eyes, no shred of knowing.

"John, we're your family!" Kitty said tearfully.

John looked at her, and there was something in his face, some slight bit of familiarity held there, for a second, in his eyes. But then he shook his head, sending his hair flying; "My family is dead," he said lightly, "and I killed them."

* * *

><p>BANDON-MAKES-AN-END<p>

* * *

><p>That is chapter three for you.<p>

I hope you read and review this, since it took me a long time to write it, and I put my heart and soul into it. All five thousand and four hundred and thirty-nine words of it. Thank you for Reading!


	4. Noting Tolerance

She Killed Stars: You don't have to check every day! Just have it set to your alerts list and you'll get a notice. I only update about once a month, since I have several stories that I write, and I have to update the before I start to work on something else.

The Sweet 16 Writer: My intent is not to make you cry! I try to have one light chapter, then one dark chapter!

Unknowen: Here's the update!

Emeralden Rapely: Yup. I think that Bobby is a good person, and good people feel guilt when they betray the person that they care for.

Evertree: Um, I don't think that you want me to spoil that right now! It will come up in the next chapter, I promise!

Blaid: Thank you! I have already spoken to you about this, so I don't think that I need to put it up here as well.

Thank you all for your reviews! I really had been trying to update for some time now, but I ended up moving out of my dad's house, which was where the files that I needed were kept, and I couldn't get them back until today. I've felt so guilty that here I am, up at fife twenty five in the morning typing this up so that I can post it as fast as I can! If I made any mistakes, please be forgiving!

Please review! I worked really hard on this, and, as you can see, it is in fact almost six in the morning here, and I really need to get to bed, but am up doing this so that I can make my reviewers happy!

Last time, on 'Days of our mutants': "My family is dead," he said lightly, "And I killed them."

BANDON-MAKES-A-START

The teachers began to whisper to each other, fevered conversations breaking out on both sides of the divide.

"What are you talking about, John?" Hank asked calmly.

The boy shrugged, "A different time, maybe. This exchange isn't about me; it's about the survival of the species." Everyone watched as he went to stand off to the side of Magneto's group, where he was quickly joined by many others. Taking in their appearance, what with them ranging in age from prepubescence to early adulthood, one wouldn't think that they had anything in common, but their demeanors were solid; each person's face etched with resolve.

Magneto cleared his throat, nodding to the young man who had so effortlessly stolen the attention from him, "Pyro is right. I called this meeting to address serious topics of discussion that have to be cleared before the start of the war."

Storm opened her mouth to talk but Magneto shook his head, "War is coming, my dear, whether you want it to or not. There is nothing to be helped, no words or actions that could quell the disaster that has brought us here." Magneto looked at Leech again, "In an effort to eradicate mutations, thousands of people have suffered. You ask that I tolerate the destruction that humans would bring about when human kind in itself is a study of intolerance." Magneto sighed, "The time for action is at hand."

"But it doesn't have to be!" Storm said pleadingly, "There is no need to risk more lives in a war with the humans. The only thing that can come from civil war is more death."

"There are certain inevitabilities in life, my dear, and most especially in the lives of mutants." Magneto said casually, "Amongst those, we will find the inevitabilities of living life and of the taking of life. Both of which are guaranteed by the situations into which we must grow and learn." Magneto pauses and scans the faces of those nearest him before saying sadly, "I, like so many who stand with me here today, were born into wars too wicked to be understood; too vast to be controlled." Glancing at the children in Pyro's group, he continued, "This is their war; the humans'."

"You're the one leading an army, Magneto. You could stop this, if you were of a mind to." Hank countered.

"You're wrong, Hank. If I were not to lead these young warriors into battle, someone else would." Magneto shook his head, "But there is no time for us to debate the consequences of conflict; we must do what is necessary for our species to survive."

Glancing down the line of X-men, Magneto focused on Warren II, a frown tracing his aged features, "And what are you doing here, Mr. Worthington?"

Warren Worthington II gulped, fidgeting in his chair, "I came because my son was determined to find that young man," he pointed to Pyro, "and because I wanted to be present if the fate of human kind was to be decided."

"And because you feel guilt, do you not?" Magneto questioned, "That the thing that you had worked so hard to make would be the base cause of the annihilation of the people that you sought to protect?"

"I made that cure to help people who wanted it; not for it to be used as a weapon." Mr. Worthington said firmly, "The design of the cure was benevolent, I assure you. I had no control over the way that it was taken or the way in which it was turned into a weapon."

Many of the people behind Magneto jeered at him, called him out on his claims, or outright growled at him, causing the man to shrink slightly, though he didn't take back anything that he said. "You're right, of course," he continued, "I made the cure; I pioneered it and I found the one child on this planet that had the right form of mutation to make it work. I won't apologize for trying to help people give themselves the lives that nature had denied them." Mr. Worthington nodded his head towards Rogue, "The cure was meant to help people who wanted it; not to force a way of life onto anyone."

Magneto shrugged, "Be that as it may; you should have thought of what would happen once a product like your so-called 'cure' was made. You should have foreseen the use of it by others as a weapon."

"I did." Mr. Worthington said, "And I took the necessary precautions. I patented the design, made all of the people that worked with, or for, me sign contracts that specifically forbade them from giving out any information that would help a third party produce anything similar to mine, built security containments for the suppressant to be transported in, and I made sure that each vial was coded, so that if a single one went missing, it could be tracked, and whoever had anything to do with its disappearance would suffer under the full letter of the law."

Magneto cocked an eyebrow, "Why go through so much trouble? I can't imagine that you would have been devastated if your suppressants were to be unleashed upon the mutant public."

Mr. Worthington looked at his son, who coughed before speaking. "I told my father to do those things. Even when I had wanted the cure, I knew that there would be people that didn't. It was a joint effort between Dr. Rao, my father, and I to make the 'cure' as secure as possible so that it couldn't get out into the public."

"And why did you want your powers taken from you in the first place, son?" Magneto asked, casting a shrewd look at Warren's father, who looked away ashamedly, "Was It, perhaps, because your father, the most renowned engineer in genetic mutations, despised your true form?"

"I never despised my son!" Mr. Worthington shouted at Magneto; face flushing, "I always made sure that my son knew that I loved him, despite whatever my stand was on mutants."

"But that did have an impact on your son, Mr. Worthington, it must have. Did you not think that knowing that your father hated all of your kind would make your son want to rid himself of the very thing that defined him as a person?"

Mr. Worthington looked at his son and opened his mouth to say something, but Warren cut him off, "Dad, just calm down." Warren looked at Magneto, "My dad's stand against mutants had an impact on me- on my choices. But I wanted the cure for myself." Warren paused and unfurled his wings, spreading them out behind his chair, "I didn't see the beauty of my mutation before I was seconds away losing it forever."

"And what made you realize that you wanted to keep your mutation?" Pyro asked, his intense amber eyes burning in their curiosity.

Warren hesitated, pulling his wings around him until he could look at the tips, "I realized," he said softly, "That I had had wings for the whole of my life, and had never bothered to fly."

Pyro nodded, giving a soft smile that was at odds with his normal cocky grin, "And what did you do when you saw that?"

Warren laughed, "I jumped out of a tenth story window, and flew."

"But," someone asked, "How did you know that your wings worked if you have never flown before?"

"I didn't." Warren said casually, shrugging, "I just took a chance. If they worked, I would fly, if not. . . "

Storm shivered, thinking of how short that bid for freedom would have been if Warren's wings hadn't pulled him through.

Magneto nodded at Warren before looking at Marie, "And you, my dear?" he asked, "Do you regret that you gave your powers away?"

Marie looked at the unconscious Bobby before answering, "You mean do I regret being able to touch people without killing them? Do I regret being able to get on a bus without flinching every time someone comes anywhere near me?" To prove her point, she reached out and grasped Logan's hand tightly. After several seconds, Marie let go and sunk back into her chair. "No," she said at last, "I don't regret giving up my powers."

Magneto looked at her pityingly, "My dear, you will one day realize that your powers were a gift. Many people, even those surrounding you, would give up the world to be able to keep people away from them."

Marie cocked her head questioningly, not understanding what he was saying. "Why would someone want to be kept at arm's length from everyone else? I couldn't stand it."

Sighing, Magneto shook his head, "That is because you have had people to hold you and to want to touch you lovingly. You have never had to fear that a hand coming towards you would wrap around your throat, or that the arms that held you would suddenly push you to the ground." Magneto looked to his sides, taking in the envious looks on the faces of his followers, "Not many people can boast of that, my dear. That I why someone would want to be able to drain the life out of anyone that touched them; that is why so many people are here today." Magneto paused and closed his eyes, tilting his head to the ceiling, "Ah," he said loftily, "It would appear that we have to cut this meeting short." He motioned swiftly to Pyro, who nodded his head and ran from the room.

"Where is he-?" Storm tried to ask, but Magneto cut her off.

"The time I had planned to devote to this matter has been minimized, my dear." He said, "We must get things in order now. I assume that you have all talked over who would be joining our brotherhood?"

"Only for-"Storm tried to say, but Magneto gave her no time.

"Yes, yes; only for a short time; then, if anyone wants to go back to their original side, they can. There is no time for this, we must hurry."

"I'll go over there if Pyro comes over here," Leech said.

Magneto nodded, releasing the boy from his bonds, motioning him to his side. Leech hesitated, looking at Warren and Mr. Worthington. "They need to come too." He said, "They would know more about the technical aspect of the production than I would."

Magneto sighed in frustration, gaze hovering on the ceiling once more before releasing their bonds as well.

"We want to go to that side, too," Robert said, motioning to Megan, Jessica, Vanessa, and himself. Magneto released them and they joined him near the door.

"I want to go over there too," Marie said, casting another look at Bobby as she stood.

With a wave of his hand, a number of people broke off of his group, joining the X-Men with some hesitance.

As Magneto released the X-Men, Pyro entered the room again, carrying a tattered backpack in one hand and an iPod in the other. Shrugging on his bag, he put the device into his pocket and looked towards the ceiling in trepidation.

"Pyro," Magneto said softly, "You must go with them. They have the answers that you want; they can reveal to you what has been hidden."

The boy nodded before trotting over to their group, his long hair whipping about his face as a strong wind broke through the cavern. Appearing at the center their gathering, the X-Jet stood, summoned their by some unknown force. "We must get in," Pyro said, running to the underside.

Storm and Wolverine exchanged glances before following, herding their new recruits with them, leaving Peter to pick up Bobby and carry him inside.

Once the hatch had closed with everyone inside, Storm looked at Pyro, "What's going on, John?" She asked only to have him give her a one-fingered salute. "My name isn't John." He spat at her, "Quit calling me that."

Logan reached to grab the boy, intent on throttling him for being disrespectful, but Pyro used his powers to engulf the man in flames, sending him to the floor.

"No!" Storm screamed, "Pyro, stop!"

The boy smiled, "That's more like it," he said, making the flames disappear to reveal Wolverine unharmed on the floor, simple looking dazed in the odd half light coming through the X-Jet's windows.

Pyro turned to her, "The military has come looking for me. Magneto had one of his members transport the Jet down here so that it couldn't be tampered with. As soon as everyone is settled, the roof is going to open and we'll be able to go through."

Storm nodded, looking furtively at Logan before buckling herself in. Kurt and Hank began to help the new kids strap themselves in as the engines roared to life and Storm ran the flight check, making the necessary adjustments.

Just as Pyro had said, the roof above them disappeared as the last person got secured, and, before Strom could worry about how she was going to get the Jet through the hole at the top without hitting the walls, it began to rise. Reaching the top, Storm noticed that their surroundings had changed since they had gone down the tunnel; instead of dry earth surrounding them, they could see fields and, in the distance, a city.

"We were constantly moving," Pyro explained, "When we were down in that cavern. That's why no one can find it, no matter how hard they try. Mole and the rest of the badger crew keep the ground in constant movement, so that it feels like its steady, even when it's not."

"Why?" Storm asked, looking at the lush surroundings.

Pyro shrugged, "to keep anyone from being able to pinpoint where we are." He pointed in the distance, where a cloud of dust had risen. "That's the military. They keep trying to find us, but since we're on the move, they can't. They may locate us every now and again, but as soon as they start digging, we move." Here the boy laughed wickedly, "It really pisses them off when they get near us only to have their query disappear."

Storm frowned, "but how do you move it? That room looked like it was pretty big; I can't imagine that it was easy to build, much less easy to move."

Pyro shrugged, "We have a lot of people move it at once. Mole, the little dude with the funny accent?" When Storm nodded her head to show that she knew who he was talking about, Pyro continued, "He and his family shrink the room down so that it is easier to manipulate; that's why you had to leave. With this jet in there, they would have had to keep the room bigger, thus costing them more energy. He and his brothers all have the same power; they can move large amounts of earth at one time."

Storm nodded, "That's actually a pretty good idea," she said, wondering how someone had come up with a plan like that.

"Mole used to live in Russia, but when the extermination came, he fled to Germany. There, he and his brothers mined, using their powers to get rich. Radiant is Mole's niece."

Storm shook her head at the information overload, wondering when the boy that had hated speaking in class had become so talkative. Lifting the gears that held the plan to the ground, Storm started the jet down the street on which they had been placed.

Sighing as she looked over the boy next to her, Storm couldn't help but think that the next couple of weeks were going to be longer than she could stand. And, as she stared at the clear Texas sky, she prayed for the first time in years.

BANDON-MAKES-A-BREAK

Storm had been more right than she cared to think about; on the way to the manor, Bobby had woken up, screaming about raining fire and John's voice. Having been unable to calm him down, Hank had had to administer a calming sedative, knocking him out for the remainder of the trip home.

Arriving at the house, all of the other kids came running, curious to see if they had succeeded in bringing their wayward housemate home.

When Pyro came off the Jet, a flurry of whispers broke out, causing the older boy to glare at them.

"Everyone," Storm called over the din, "Get inside. Right now! I don't want to see a single person here that wasn't on the jet with us; do you hear?"

Grumbling, all of the other children went back inside, staring at the newcomer's through the windows.

"Every feel like the monkey's at the zoo?" One girl asked to another, who snorted, responding with a snide comment about feces and bananas in odd places.

Sighing, Storm looked over her new charges, wishing ardently that Gene and Scott where still there to help her with this. "Alright," she said at last, "I want you all to separate into two groups; boys on one side, and girls on the other."

As the others complied, Logan watched Pyro lean up against the landing bay, his arms crossing as he scowled at the X-Men nearest him.

"You, too, Bub." Logan said, motioning that Pyro should join the boy side of the divide.

Pyro smirked annoyingly at him, "I'm not staying the night." He said cockily.

Storm frowned, "Of course you are! You're staying here, with us. That was the agreement."

Pyro scowled at her, "I didn't make an agreement. Whatever you and the old guy decided, it has nothing to do with me."

Strom frowned, "Magneto is your leader, Jo- Pyro."

Pyro scowled at her, "I don't have a leader, chick. And I sure as hell ain't staying here. I don't trust any of you."

"But John-" Kitty tried to protest, but Pyro cut her off, "Look," he said loudly, enunciating carefully, "My name isn't John. I fucking told you all that. I don't know any of you. I have no recollection of the time that I spent here back when I was a kid."

"Amnesia?" Hank questioned, perplexed, "Is that what you meant when you said that John was dead? That the memories that made John were gone?"

Pyro sighed, "You must be a shrink." He muttered, "Barely into the conversation and you're trying to make sense of it."

Hank blustered, "In fact, young man, I am the ambassador for the United States of America. My name is Doctor Hank McCoy."

Pyro grimaced, he and all of the brotherhood mutants stepping away, "A fucking official," he snarled, "You brought the fucking government. Is that your plan, hm? You gonna call the feds now that you got us here?" The question was addressed to Storm, but Hank answered, "No, son," he said calmly, "I came because I wanted to do everything in my power to help avert a war."

Pyro sneered, "Yeah, sure you did. I bet they're recording this right now to use against us later."

The other children started to whisper, banding tighter together as they glanced warily between the few X-Men remaining.

Hank coughed, breaking up the flurry of voices that had sprung up, "Young man," he said, addressing Pyro, "I do not know if you remember this or not, but early last year, after the events at Alcatraz island, there were laws enacted that prevent any form of government to interfere with the X-Men, who are now an independent organization."

John grimaced again, looking over the X-Men, "Pretty sorry bunch, yeah?"

Logan growled but Storm placed a hand on her shoulder, "Pyro," she said slowly, "We are trying to help. Magneto wanted you over here for a reason; we are the only ones who know John. We know who you used to be, Pyro. We can help you remember."

Pyro smirked lazily, "You knew John when he was a twelve year old kid, but I need something before that. Everything that I know about my life before the facility has come to me in order."

"What kind of order?" Hank asked, "What have you remembered so far?"

Pyro shrugged, casting his gaze to the sky, "In order from when it happened."

"All of a specific time period came back, or just the bits that the event that sparked the memory resembled?" Hank asked wonderingly.

Pyro continued as though he hadn't heard the other man speak, "In the smoking rubble, I remembered living in Australia as a child. I remember my power becoming known." Pyro paused and rubbed his arms, "When we ran from that place, we eventually came across an impoverished neighborhood, and it brought back when I first came to live in America."

"I didn't know that you were Australian." Kitty said.

Pyro shrugged, "That's why I don't think that you all would be able to help me, at least not right now."

Storm coughed, "Is that all that you remember, Pyro? Does the recollection stop at the time when you came to live in America?"

Pyro shook his head, "No," he said vaguely, "But I think we have more important things to discuss. For one thing," he pointed at the girl who had made the rude comment about monkey excrement, "Kayla needs to put her insulin up."

"You're a diabetic?" Storm asked the girl, who nodded. Sighing, Storm directed everyone inside, knowing that the girl's insulin would go hot by the time she got Pyro to talk about anything concrete.

BANDON-MAKES-A-BREAK

Storm sank into the office chair, her body aching with a weariness that shouldn't belong to her for several years. "Oh," she moaned miserably, "Why does all the hard work happen when everyone else is gone?"

Hank, who had come to lie on the couch, chuckled, "It is what it is, Ororo. We can do nothing but soldier on."

Storm cocked an eye at him, but chose not to comment. They sat in silence for a couple of minutes, each absorbed in their own thoughts.

Logan walked in, his white tank top smeared with something green. He just grunted at the questioning looks and sat in the plushest armchair. "Fucking kids. . ." he muttered darkly as he too went to starring at the nearby fireplace.

"He's gone!" Came a shout from the hall, and they all jumped up, stumbling over the bunched rugs.

"Who's gone?" Storm called, flinging open the door to see Bobby running down the hall, his face the picture of terror.

"John," Bobby gasped, drawling in gulps of air, "I went to his room, and he wasn't there. I asked some of the kids that came with him where he had gone, and they wouldn't tell me."

Storm ran from the room, flying down the hallway to the children's dorms, leaving the others to follow.

"Where is she?" she shrieked at the new boy who was supposed to be Pyro's roommate.

The Boy squared his shoulders, his eyes losing the sleepiness that had been in them when Storm had woken him.

"It's none of your business." He hissed out, pulling out of her grip, "He told me not to tell you, and I won't."

"But he could be in danger," Storm pleaded, "If anyone finds out who he is, he could be killed."

The boy snorted before closing his eyes and sighing sadly, "Pyro won't get himself killed, I promise you that." Opening his eyes again, the boy leveled them with a critical look, "I know that you all care for him, or at least you care for his other self, but he need space. He has to find out certain things for himself, and, where he's going, I don't think that you all need to follow."

"Where?" Storm shook the boy, "Where is it that he's going, kid?"

The boy shook his head again and stood from the bed, "He has to regain his memory back in the order in which he experienced it. Right now he's out looking for himself."

"But we can help him, you must see that!" Hank said, still out of breath from the jog over.

"You can't," The boy said calmly, "Pyro came here when he was twelve, and he didn't share anything of his past life with any of you. The only thing that you all could do was slow him down." He sighed, "He'll be back, just give him a little time."

Hank sighed agitatedly, "There isn't time!" He said, "I haven't even told the President that we've found him, and now we've lost him again! War is about to break out, and the one person who can help us avert it is somewhere, doing something!"

Collapsing on what would have been Pyro's bed, Hank put his head in his hands.

The kid looked on warily, "Well," he said at last, "I could ask him if he could communicate with you somehow, if that'd be okay."

Hank's head shot up, "You can do that?"

The boy nodded, "My power is telepathy. I can communicate with anyone that I have ever met."

Hank nodded eagerly, "That would be infinitely better than nothing, I suppose. Can you contact him now?"

"I think he might be asleep," The boy said, "He didn't get much rest in the last few days, and I think he was going to a safe house, so. . . "

Storm sighed, "He needs to sleep, but. . ."

Hank nodded, "But we desperately need to know what happened there. If we can't figure out the cause that starts the war, then we can't hope to avert the war."

The boy frowned at them, but when he tilted his head to the side, Strom could tell that he was doing what they had asked him to.

"He says that, if you can set it up, he is willing to talk to whoever you want him to over web cam." The boy said in a monotonous voice, "He says that anytime you need to contact him, use me as a medium, and he will respond, within reason."

With a jolt, the kid opened his eyes, a grin breaking out on his face, "And he say that he was trying to sleep, you assholes."

Strom frowned at the language, but let it slide, "Did he say how we can get a web cam to him?"

The boy shook his head, "One of my powers is to project the person that I'm being a medium for. As long as he allows it, I can connect to him with my mind, and recreate a hologram of him wherever I am."

Storm nodded, "Thank you for your help. . ."

"Augustus," the boy finished for her, smiling, "There wasn't really time for introductions earlier."

Strom smiled back and yawned, feeling like she hadn't slept in weeks. "Well then, Augustus, we'll let you get back to sleep. Thank you, again."

Everyone else nodded their heads in thanks as they left, exiting quietly.

Back in the Ororo's office, they arranged themselves again, sighing as they began to relax. "What are we going to do?" hank asked suddenly, "I have no idea what's going to happen tomorrow, when I tell the President what's happened thus far. I have no idea how he'll react to how I've handled this situation."

Logan shrugged, "Tell them what they need to know and nothing else. Say that you found someone who can put you in contact with the kid, and say that he's willing to talk to whoever they have for him to talk to."

"Lie?" Hank asked, repulsed.

"Tell the truth creatively," Logan corrected.

Storm shook her head and bid them a good night as she headed for her room, intent on getting some sleep before their meeting with god-knew-who.

BANDON-MAKES-A-BREAK

"Fuck," Storm said groggily, rolling over on her bed to reach for the alarm clock that was making the god awful noise that had woken her.

Sighing, she looked out of her window and grimaced, noting that the sun hadn't risen yet.

Slipping out of the warmth that her blankets provided, she got dressed almost mechanically, allowing muscle memory to get her through the tedious task before leaving to find some breakfast.

Entering the kitchen, she realized that she wasn't the only one awake at the ass-crack of dawn; Hank, Logan, Augustus, Kurt, and several of the new kids were positioned around the room, either eating various breakfast items or talking quietly.

Hank, Augustus, and Logan were doing both, their conversation pausing for bites of food or sips of drinks.

Storm smiled at the activity around her, having always been fond of early morning wake-ups when she was younger.

". . . And then we can have you. . ." She heard Hank saying as she walked up, to which Augustus nodded.

"And since there is no real danger for him, he might be more willing to talk to who you want him to talk to." Augustus finished, smiling.

"You sure you can do it, though?" Logan asked.

Augustus frowned, "Of course I can! I know the limits of my power."

Logan didn't look totally convinced, but he nodded.

"What are you three talking about?" Strom asked.

"I contacted Washington earlier today, and they asked that I arrange a meeting today with Pyro. We talked it over this morning, and we've come to the conclusion that Augustus will create a projection of Pyro through his powers, that we will have placed in front of web cam. This guarantees that both boys are safe, and that the questions that we have will be answered."

Storm nodded, glad that she didn't have to think up the solution this time "When do you think the meeting could take place?" She asked.

"Around noon, I think," Augustus replied, "We need time to get Pyro to agree, and set up the equipment."

Strom nodded, making herself a bowl of cereal before they made their plans for the day.

BANDON-MAKES-A-BREAK

It was a good thing that they had told the people in Washington that the meeting should be a one, instead of at noon, because everything took longer to prepare than they had thought.

They couldn't get Pyro to agree to participate, at first. And then the cameras had refused to cooperate. In short, the day had thus far sucked.

It wasn't until nearly twelve thirty before they had everything set on their end, and then they had to wait an additional thirty minutes for the Washington correspondence to get settled.

Sighing, Storm looked at Pyro's body, superimposed on Augustus', and shivered. "He won't look like that when the camera's come on, will he?" She whispered to Hank.

Hank shook his head, "When the camera's turn on, he will solidify and Augustus will be blocked from view."

Storm nodded, though she still thought that their plan could have been better planned.

As the light over the camera came on, Hank was proved right; Pyro's image thickened and solidified, while Augustus' seemed to shrink backwards, hiding behind the other boy.

"Greetings, Pyro." The President said diplomatically.

Pyro nodded his head, a tight smile in his face.

"I understand that it must have been difficult for you to arrange this meeting on such short notice and that-"

"Cut the shit." Pyro interrupted, "I know why you're here, and you know why I'm here. There is no room for such pleasantries in war, Mr. President."

Johnston huffed angrily, but he nodded, "Then you know what I want, Pyro. I want to know everything that happened at the facility. I want to know why you incinerated over two hundred people in the facility."

Pyro cocked an eyebrow at the accusing tone, "You want to know why I did it, Mr. President? You really want to know?"

Johnston fidgeted with his cufflinks, but nodded, licking his lips, "In order to minimize the back lash of that event I have to have all of the information that I can acquire. I need to know how that place went from a pristine research lab to the burnt out hell that we found."

Pyro's eyes narrowed, flashing crimson over their normal amber hue, "Do you know what hell is, Mr. President?" Pyro asked quietly.

Johnston winced at the hollowness of the boy's voice, but couldn't speak.

"Hell is watching someone that you care for get brutalized, and knowing that everything that you'd give to keep them safe will be taken from you regardless. It's both dreading and hoping to hear footsteps coming down the hallway because the same person that makes you wish to be dead might also give you the food you need to survive."

Pyro allowed his eyes to glaze over with the ghosts of his memories, "It's begging to suck off a man you hate for a piece of rotten fruit. It's feeling your mind start to fall into insanity and hoping to god that it stays there, that it doesn't have to see what you've become."

Johnston visibly paled, but the boy in front of him continued; "It's when you see children half your age withering in front of you, and knowing that you can't do a damn thing to stop it. That the only thing you have to offer is the only thing that you know that you can't give."

Pyro stopped talking and drew a blade from his back pocket, rolling up the sleeve of his shirt as he began to speak again, "It's knowing that the only freedom you could ever receive is death," he turned his wrist over, displaying the scars that ran up his arm, "and having it be kept beyond your grasp." And Pyro slashed his skin, slitting it apart in a bloody spray.

Hank cried out, but, as he stood, the wound healed, the blood remaining on the boy's skin soaking into the smooth flesh, not even a scar left to show the damage that he knew had just been done.

"My god," Johnston gasped, a green tint falling over his face.

"Yeah," Pyro said breathily, "I can't die." The Boy lifted his shirt, displaying the emaciation that had been hidden beneath.

Johnston actually threw up, doubling over in his chair to heave onto the floor as his staff jolted about, finding a bin or thrusting handkerchiefs at the president.

Pyro stared on dispassionately, shirt still pulled up, as he waited for order to reign.

Finally, the President sat back up, his face covered with sweat.

Pyro coughed and continued, "This body died a thousand times over, but was never allowed to remain so."

Hank had to clear his throat before being able to speak, "How did you gain the ability to heal yourself, Pyro? I knew only of your ability to manipulate flames."

Pyro shrugged, "It is called 'dead-pool.' The program by the same name started with Keith Stryker in the fifties, but was disbanded after a disaster. It comes down to combining various mutations into one body in such a way as to have them coexist."

"They took one person's mutation and gave it to someone else?" Johnston asked, the greenness of his face returning to normal.

"Yes," Pyro affirmed, "The overall goal was to create a mutant as powerful as to be indestructible, a super warrior."

"Give one person's mutation to another." Johnston mused aloud, "Could they give it to humans, mutations, that is?"

Pyro flinched, eyes haunted, "That's what the human children where there for. The scientists studied the effects of putting mutations in humans."

"What happened?" Hank whispered.

"They fell apart," Pyro said, "The human body can't stand the power. It tears itself to pieces trying to find an outlet, but the body doesn't have one." Pyro looked at President Johnston before continuing, locking their gazes, "The children would all suffer for years until the mutation came to fruition, normally at twelve of thirteen, and then they would have violent reactions to sun, open air, even to oxygen. Eventually, their bodies would stop being able to hold the molecules together, and the base cell structure would collapse."

Johnston broke eye contact, placing his head between his legs and breathing deeply, his eyes moist in the dim light.

Pyro watched him for several minutes, waiting patiently for the man to compose himself, before continuing, though he closed his eyes, "Do you know what it's like to be starving to death, every day, but to never die? Do you know what it's like to have the flesh of your mouth flake and peel because you haven't been given water in weeks? No, of course not." Pyro's voice turned bitter, "You weren't there; you didn't have to live through that. You couldn't understand the suffering that drove that inferno. You couldn't begin to comprehend the pain and the rage that ignited inside of the shell that I had become." Pyro breathed in and out slowly, calming himself before speaking again, "And now that everything is out, you can't understand the need for vengeance that has sparked within those of us who survived that hell. But you will know our suffering, I promise you that."

And then he was gone, the projected version of him cut off, leaving Augustus to wobble in the chair before fainting. As the X-Men helped the boy from the room, leaving Hank to stare at the empty stretch of wall behind the chair, knowing that if he stood before the camera, his colleagues would see the revulsion on his face.

Finally, though, he knew that prudence had to come before saving face. Breathing deeply, Hank revealed himself to his President, who was still staring blankly at the screen. "Mr. President?" Hank questioned softy, receiving a slight shake of the head in acknowledgment, "We must talk about what we are going to be asking of that boy, Sir. We must decide what, if he chooses to have another conversation with us, we will have him tell us."

Johnston nodded, his whole body trembling as he looked at his ambassador. "I'm afraid, Dr. McCoy, that war may just me inevitable."

BANDON-MAKES-AN-END

And the end of Chapter Four! Please, please, please review this. It is five forty A.M., and this is six thousand six hundred and sixty six words long!


	5. Engrave My Heart

Emeralden Rapely: Hehe, Did this satisfy your question? And you'll just have to wait 'til the end to see if John/Pyro and Bobby will be getting back together.

Jemlou: Here's the update! I hope that it was worth the wait! I try to update every month, but sometimes it just doesn't happen like I want it to. I'm a couple of days behind wit this update, but it's what you make of it! I hope you get happy when you see my update in your inbox!

Harlequin Jade: Thank you! I try really hard to make it make sense! I'm sorry that this chapter is so short, but I'll make up for it in the next one!

Mass Hysteria: Thank you! I tried really hard to keep in manageable. I didn't want it to be a soap opera speech, but I wanted it to show some of the hurt that he went through!

Sweet 16 Writer: Here you go! Thank you for saying that I write tragedy well!

Franks-not-Dead: Here it is! Thank you!

Golden Spring time: Thank you!

To ALL OF MY READERS! I got a new job that works me about forty five hours a week, plus my other job that works me thirty hours a week, so it's kinda hard to write as much as I like. I can only write on those few days when I don't have to be up at the ass crack of dawn, so yeah.

The Lyrics are from 'Flowers for a Ghost' by thriving Ivory.

I own nothing but the specific plot to which I write!

Here we go!

Last time on 'Days of our mutants': ". . . War may just be inevitable."

Hank looked away, unable to answer the plea in the man's eyes. "I cannot offer you hope, President Johnston," He intoned somberly, "For I have none myself." Sighing, Hank sank into the chair that Augustus had just vacated, "I will continue to work things from my position here, if that's alright?"

Johnston nodded his head tiredly, "I will have Winona take on your ambassador responsibilities for the time being." Johnston stood, turning away from the camera, "You know, Hank?" he asked quietly, "I think that you would have done so much better than I have if it were you behind the podium."

Hank sat stunned as the President walked out of the room, leaving his aides to gape at the stunned mutant. "Well," A slight woman drawled in a Texas accent, "That's one way to say thanks."

Hank laughed, shaking his head, "I don't know if that was thanking me or painting a bulls-eye on my back, Winona."

Winona Cartridge shrugged, standing from her seat near the end of the neat row of chairs, "Whatever it is, make sure you keep up with it." Giving a deep sigh, she cast a critical eye on her colleagues, "We need all the help we can get with this fiasco."

Hank coughed to cover a laugh, glad that someone with a level head was taking up his administration, "I'm truly sorry that I have to abandon my duties, Winona-"

"It's fine." She said briskly, cutting him off, "Just focus on this problem. If someone bombs my house over this I won't be happy." She gave a small wave as she left, using the same exit as the President.

Hank looked at the men and women left behind and grimaced; none of them had the attitude to do anything productive. He knew for a fact that several of them were for the mutant registration act. Nodding his head, he turned off the camera, glad that he could get away from those accusing eyes, at least for the moment.

BANDON-MAKES-A-BREAK

Pyro could feel the fire racing through his veins. It was so much worse than before- so much better. Stronger, more fierce; but still his. It was familiar to him, like a friend that he hadn't seen in years, who had grown in his absences. But there were traces here and there, almost like parasites or virus', hidden amongst the folds of power, that drove at him. That turned his fire against him.

Those malicious usurpers sought an outlet, but he bit his lip to keep them closed off. The blood that stood, briefly, on his tongue served to sate the thirst that rode him to the brink of the sanity that he clung to. For several seconds he stood still, letting the power wash over him. When he could feel the waves of fire receding in his mind, he opened his eyes, taking in the room that was to be his home as he searched for understanding amongst the tattered remains of _his_ memories.

Sighing, he reached down to the bag at his feet, pulling out the wad of cash he had been able to collect. His past life had gifted him with more than one useful skill, amongst them those he had used to acquire the things that he had now. Rubbing a hand down his face, he winced at the foreignness of it. Gone were the soft features that had won him so much affection as a child. In his emaciation the baby fat had disappeared, leaving his face little more than a fine jaw and sharp cheek bones. He walked to the bath room, set to take in the differences; sunken eyes met in the mirror, black smudges taking the amber and turning it to something darker, lifeless.

He stared at himself, studying what that place had turned him into. He couldn't remember much of the time before he became lost, only what came back in his dreams- his nightmares.

A happy youth, someone who was cocky, sure of himself. He could touch, briefly, the tinge of sadness that lied behind his former selves' smile, but that was all. He knew that happiness had been his, but also anguish. Love- he remembered love, the warmth that had consumed him not unlike the fire that now threatened his sanity.

Now he was a shell, empty of what had been his by right until _they_ had taken it away. Running a hand through his hair, he remembered someone else doing the same thing. He couldn't remember whose hand it had been, but he could remember that warmth coursing through him, even if the touch of _those_ fingers against his scalp left him shivering.

Dragging his hand roughly through the silken mass of hair, he snarled at himself. "That wasn't you!" He screamed, sending his fist at the offending image. As both the memory and the mirror shattered, he felt blood run down his arm in thin rivulets. It was hot, for a second, burning against his skin, before cooling in the air.

Staring at the healing damage, he sank to the floor, clutching his aching head, "What am I?" He whispered desperately to himself, "What the fuck am I?"

And a thousand miles away, another boy cried with him, caught in the pain.

BANDON_MAKES_A_BREAK

Augustus Punitor curled in on himself, fighting off the madness that threatened to take over his mind. "God," he moaned into his pillow, fighting with his base instinct to cry out, "Make it stop." He sent calm through to the other boy.

After several seconds of fighting, Pyro allowed his friend to ease his suffering, succumbing to sleep.

Augustus panted, rolling onto his back as the pain left his body and slowly returned to its unconscious owner.

"What happened?" Storm asked, worried.

Augustus shook his head, unable to speak as he tried to regain his breath.

"It appears that Pyro may have been in a more fragile state of mind than we had previously thought," Hank said quietly, joining the others in the room.

"What do you mean?" Logan asked with a frown, "The kid can't be much more fucked up than what we saw today."

Augustus shook his head, sitting up from his bed, "He's too unstable right now." Panting, he rubbed his aching head, "He's being torn apart by what those scientists woke inside of him."

"The powers that they gave him?" Hank asked.

Augustus looked away, biting his lip, "Those he can stand just fine. It's his own power that scares him."

Storm frowned, "But he was always able to control his power before. If it's still his power, then shouldn't it be the same?"

Augustus laughed mirthlessly, "You're not hearing me. They awoke something that Pyro wasn't ready for. When John died his power took another step toward evolution."

Logan and Storm exchanged confused glances but Hank gasped, "His power evolves? It changes, becomes more powerful by grade instead of all at once?"

Storm shook her head, "That's impossible. Mutants are born with their power. It can only be controlled, not expanded."

Augustus laughed bitterly, "What do you think this school is for, Ms. Munroe?"

Storm gave him a confused look, "This is a school for the gifted. Mutants who have nowhere else to go come here to learn in safety."

Hank looked away, "Not entirely, Ororo." He said softly.

"What do you mean?" Logan asked, agitated.

"When Charles was young, he and Magneto, then Erik Lencher, went around the country looking for mutants to join a government task force." Sighing, Hank rubbed his eyes, "It was with a machine that I had built, Cerrebro, that Charles was able to track down the other mutants."

"But Professor Xavier had always been so against mutants fighting for the government!" Storm protested.

"And with good cause," Hank answered matter of factly, "After they had formed the task force, they were sent on a mission to stop a man who was using mutants to combat and control humans. Though the human public didn't know it, the Cuban missile crisis was this man's doing."

"But why?" Storm asked, not seeing the benefit of starting a war between Cuba and America.

"He gave many reasons," Hank said tiredly, "He could harness the power of a bomb and use its energy to make himself more powerful. Maybe he wanted to see if the radioactivity would actually turn humans into mutants. Maybe he just wanted to annihilate as many lives as he could. I can't tell you for certain."

"But how did Charles get caught up in all of this?" Storm asked.

"An agent with the FBI saw mutants working with a General and needed more information. She had gone to Charles, who was the most accomplished professor in the study of genetic mutation. She couldn't have known that he was an actual mutant, that his theories on evolution were based off of personal experience." Sighing, Hank rubbed his eyes, "Raven and Charles went to the FBI building to present Charles' theories, but they were not well received. Some of the men that they had presented to had laughed at Charles' findings and Raven couldn't stand it. She stood and changed her shape to that of one of the Generals." Shaking his head, Hank smiled, "She was magnificent, back in those days. She was young but strong-willed. She and Charles worked with the FBI to hunt down their target, which is where they found Erik."

"He was working with that guy?" Logan asked, sitting on a nearby desk chair.

"No," Augustus answered, "He was there to kill that man." Augustus' eyes grew hard, "That man had been much like the William and Keith Stryker's of this time. He had been preforming cruel experiments on young mutants."

"Was Magneto . . . ?" Storm trailed off.

Augustus nodded sadly, "Magneto was one of that man's first. That man created the hatred in Magneto. The bitterness and the anger. It was revenge that drew Erik to Charles at first."

"What do you mean, 'At first,'?" Logan questioned.

Augustus shrugged, "Friendship developed between them as they looked for other mutants."

"But how did they go from working with the government to what they are now?" Storm asked, looking between Augustus and Hank.

"After we had defeated that man, the Cuban and American commanders decided that it would be beneficial to put an end to the _abominations_ that had just saved their sorry asses." Hank spat, his control slipping briefly.

"Oh my god." Storm gasped, "They tried to kill you?"

Hank nodded, "All of us. Even their own agent, who had flown in with us to stop the terroristic plot."

"And you can see why Magneto has nothing but hate for the Humans." Augustus said, shrugging.

"But what does all of this have to do with the school?" Logan snarled, irritated.

Augustus sighed impatiently, "That's the point! Charles Xavier went around the country looking for the most powerful mutants to train. He gathered the ones that he knew could be used for evil and taught them to use their powers only when necessary."

"But Xavier takes in all types of kids," Storm said defensively, "Not just the ones that are really powerful."

"But haven't you noticed how most of them are?" Augustus said, "How most of the kids here could be dangers to themselves and others if they were to grow up in the outside world?"

"He helps anyone who needs it!" Storm said, standing straight, "Xavier has never turned anyone away!"

"But how many children have actually come here?" Augustus said sadly, "A handful, at most."

"Well," Storm floundered, "It may be that not a lot of kids know about this place."

Augustus snorted, "After it got attacked back in '08? Everyone knows about it." Sighing, Augustus stood, wincing as his muscles contracted, "Xavier's is full of kids that were brought here, sometimes against their will."

"I didn't know that you guys did that." Logan said, casting a critical eye at Storm, who looked away.

"They don't know what they want." She said. "Most of these kids have lived on the streets for so long they can't trust other people."

"And so you caught and caged them." Augustus said harshly, "Like those wicked men did to us at the facility, you thought that you knew better than we did. That our lives weren't ours to control because we had been raised like savages."

"It wasn't like that!" Storm shouted, "You wouldn't understand!"

"What wouldn't I understand?" Augustus countered, "Living the life that I thought was best for me only to have someone come and destroy it? Take me by force and keep me in a prison?"

"This is hardly a prison!" Storm hissed, motioning to the expensive furniture and soft bed.

"What else could it be called?" Augustus snarled, "John was kept here against his will, punished when he tried to escape. What do you call that?"

"I- he" Storm mumbled, "It wasn't-"

"It wasn't what?" Augustus asked mockingly, "It wasn't like that? Are you going to tell me that whenever John broke out of this place you all didn't hunt him down like an animal and drag him back? That he wasn't kept in isolation for days after each incident?"

"He was violent!" Storm justified heatedly, though her argument was losing momentum.

"So he was drugged and chained for the good of the other children?" Augustus shouted, his eyes changing color rapidly, his power surging into the brown irises, "And why not just let him live his life, huh? Why keep him here against his will when other mutants on the streets would kill to be here?"

"I- Professor Xavier, he said that John needed to be here." Storm floundered, "The Professor said that John needed guidance."

Augustus snorted, "Are you so blind? What was it about John that the Professor looked at the closest? What were the tests run on? Do you remember?"

"Of course I-" Storm started to shout, only to freeze with her mouth half open, "The tests. Yes, I remember them. Shortly after Gene and Scott brought him here Charles insisted that he be given an endurance test. I had though it silly at the time, but Charles had insisted. . ."

Augustus nodded tiredly, "Those test weren't just to make sure that John was healthy, they were to make sure that the information Xavier had stolen from John's mind was correct. To prove that John was the first mutant to ever have the capability to be a level five without it destroying his body and mind."

"Wait," Hank said breathily, "You mean to tell me that not only can John's powers evolve, but that they can evolve all the way to the fifth level?"

Augustus nodded, "And beyond that."

"But how is it triggered?" Hank questioned, his eyes shining with interest.

Augustus looked away, "Think about it," he said quietly, "What was it that changed John from a class three to a class four? What changed him from a four to a five?"

"He's already at the fifth level?" Hank gasped, collapsing onto John's bed.

Augustus looked away, horrors untold dancing behind his eyes, "You should have already guessed what it was that sent him from a three to a four. It was the reason he left here."

"But we don't know why he left!" Storm cried exasperatedly, "He never gave any signs; he didn't talk to anyone about it, not even his best friend!"

Augustus gave her a brittle look, "He gave more than signs before he was forced to leave. He is hard to read, I know, but that amount of pain isn't something that can be looked over."

"He's right," Logan admitted gruffly, "When we went to Drake's house I sensed it. He was sick with it; loneliness, sadness. It clung to him every time he and the other kids were in the same room."

Storm frowned, "I didn't notice anything. He never fought with Bobby, and he and Marie got along fine. I know that they started to hang out less when Bobby and Rogue got together, but that was the end of it."

Augustus snorted, shaking his head, "That was the end of it, alright." He whispered, falling back onto his bed, "Bobby was John's best friend, the one person that he trusted more than anything. When he chose to be with that girl over being with him. . ."

"But Marie was Bobby's girlfriend!" Storm said, "It's reasonable for a boy to choose to hang out with his significant other than to hang out with the guys every now and again."

Augustus gave her a long look before laughing, "You really don't know, do you?" He asked, drawling his legs to his chest, "You don't know just how close those two were?"

"Who?" Storm questioned with a frown.

Sighing, Augustus jutted his chin at the door, "How 'bout you ask him?"

And in stepped Bobby Drake, head bent and eyes sad.

"What is he talking about, Bobby?" Storm asked the teen.

Bobby drew a deep breath, "John and I were more than friends, more than roommates." Shrugging his shoulders guiltily he gave a ragged sigh, "John and I were lovers."

"No!" Storm cried out, ready to give an admonishment but Bobby was continuing.

"I didn't know what I wanted then; I was confused. John caught me. . ." Bobby gave a vague hand movement and the other nodded, "And he said that he could teach me a better way to- to _relieve_ those kinds of tensions."

"How long did this go on for?" Hank asked levelly, knowing that any condemnation might set the boy on edge.

"For the entire time he was here." Bobby sobbed out, falling into the only remaining chair, wrapping his arms around himself. "I couldn't come out about it. I- I just couldn't. John understood, he knew that I was afraid of how my family would react. He was okay with us being a secret; he even helped me get with Rogue." Letting a tear roll down his face, Bobby wiped at his face angrily, "I was a fucking idiot. I should have seen how hurt John was when Rogue and I held hands, when we talked for hours. I should have seen the regret in his eyes when I took her home with me." Shaking his head Bobby laughed bitterly, "Maybe I saw it, saw every jealous look he cast our way, heard every nightmare he had when I wasn't there to hold him. But I was so stupid. I told him that my family would never accept me if they knew that I was both a mutant and a fag." Clawing at the tear tracks on his face, Bobby closed his eyes, "John was so understanding, he knew how much having a family meant to me."

Logan frowned, "What happened after your parents found out?"

Bobby shook his head, so Augustus answered, "John had thought that they could be together as a real couple. He though that Bobby would be with him in the open, claim him for once."

"But wasn't Bobby already dating Marie?" Storm asked, "He couldn't have expected for Bobby to break up with his current Girlfriend to get back with his Ex-Lover."

"Who says that they were 'ex' anything?" Augustus asked in a deadly tone, causing Bobby to flinch.

"No," Storm said, shaking her head, "I know Bobby. He wouldn't have cheated on Marie. I know that they broke up, but that didn't have anything to do with infidelity." Looking at the boy, she asked, "Did it?"

Bobby opened his mouth to speak but Augustus cut him off, "it was after you two had sex, wasn't it?"

Bobby looked away, nodding.

Augustus sneered at him, "I understand; when you had something as great as John for years, what the hell is a virgin?"

Bobby jerked his head up, "It wasn't like that!" He defended, "I never took advantage of John. Marie and I- we just- it wasn't right."

Augustus nodded sagely, "Cause, you know, you're GAY." He said baldly, "You might have told yourself a thousand times that you weren't but you are. Howe did it feel, when you finally got into her pants? Did it repulse you? Did you want to be sick all over her?" Augustus dropped his voice to a stage whisper, "Or did you think of him? Is that how you were able to keep it hard enough for her?"

"That's inappropriate!" Storm said, putting a hand on Bobby's shoulder, only to have the teen knock it off.

"He's right," He choked out, "I did think of John as Marie and I had sex. I tried not to; I tried to think of Marie's body beneath mine, her hands running down my arms. But I couldn't. It was his face I saw when I closed my eyes, his name I called when I came."

"And how did you feel?" Augustus asked venomously, "Did you finally regret letting him go?"

"Bobby couldn't have stopped him!" Storm said, "John left to join Magneto of his own free will."

"No," Bobby cried, voice strangled, "It was there, in his eyes. As he left the plane it was as clear as day."

"What was, Bobby?" Hank asked kindly, though he knew the answer.

"They said," Bobby gasped out around tears, "His eyes- they said 'Tell me. Tell me you love me.' I could see what he was doing, but I just stood there as his eyes pleaded with me. I watched as he left and I knew that all I had to do was call out for him to stop and he would have. But I didn't. I didn't tell him to stay with me; I couldn't tell him that I loved him."

"And didn't you?" Augustus asked softly, the malice leaving his voice, "I can feel it even now; you yearn for him like a freezing person for warmth."

Bobby nodded, hugging himself in a bruising grip, "God, I do." Sobbing brokenly, he folded his body into itself, "I love him so much it hurts. I love him so much I can't stand it."

Augustus looked at the ceiling sadly, "He's not there anymore, you must realize it."

Bobby shook his head emphatically, "He remembers. I know he does. He called my name at the meeting. He called out to me." No one could ignore the desperation in the boy's voice.

Augustus nodded, "He can remember that place. Everything about it. The walls we would stare at for hours, the guards that would be kind as compared to those that took advantage." Looking out his window, Augustus closed his eyes, "He remembers who he thought about, during that time. He would never tell us about the dreams that he had, the ones that kept the horror of his life at bay, but I know that they were of this place. Of the people here that he came to care for."

Bobby choked as he tried to talk, but Augustus continued, "John was already a class four by the time that I met him." Shaking his head, Augustus opened his eyes, revealing a glacial blue instead of the warm brown that had resided their a moment ago, "When something happened to him that hurt beyond what he could stand, that's when the power would build. He was born below a class one, and had he had a normal life, he never would have surpassed that. He would never have known about his powers at all."

Hank nodded his head, "When John became a class five-"

Augustus shook his head, "You aren't hearing me. John never got to class five. He died."

Hank and Storm exchanged frowns, but Logan nodded, "The spirit left, but the body was forced to remain intact."

Augustus nodded, but forestalled other questions with a raised hand, "You'll have to ask Pyro for any other details about that day. I wasn't one of the subjects being tested with him." Sighing, Augustus laid out on the bed, "And I'm tired; if Pyro agrees to give another statement tomorrow, then I have to rest."

Storm nodded, "Alright. If you need something then send any of us a message."

Augustus nodded, but even though they left, he didn't go to sleep. He connected his mind to Pyro's, felt the pressure there. Rolling onto his side, Augustus calmed his mind, staring at the clouds blocking the sun. 'It's going to be okay, Pyro,' he said to the other boy, 'It's all okay.'

'. . . Yeah, right. . .' came drifting sleepily back to him. Grinning, Augustus bid his friend a good night as he too succumbed to sleep, content to fight off the nightmares haunting the other boy's fragile mind.

BANDON-MAKES-A-BREAK

"What are we going to do?" Storm asked in a whisper as Bobby rounded the corner, "Now that we know why he left. . ."

Logan shrugged, "It is what it is. The kid got serious with someone who didn't want to bring him home. It happens." The words would have been harsh it not for the sadness behind them.

"I'll come up with questions," Hank said, looking away from his friend's pain, "And I'll talk it over with the right people." Sighing, he rubbed his eyes, "We shouldn't have chosen to go in blind today, but what choice did we have?"

"None," Storm said, "With the amount of time that we had to work with and all of the effort that it took for us to get what we could together. . ." Storm shrugged, "It might not have been much, but at least we talked. That has to count for something."

Hank nodded, though his face was tight with worry, "I'll leave you two to deal with the children; I have to go make arrangements."

Storm and Logan nodded, giving their advice before leaving.

Hank started walking to his room, but stopped as he heard soft singing_, 'I never meant for you to have to crawl,' _a soft male voice sang in a choked whisper, _'No I never meant to let you go at all.' _

Hank edged closer to the nearest window, finding it open.

'_Oh, no. O-h, no._' Looking down into the yard, he saw Bobby, crouched amongst frozen blades of grass.

Hank backed away, his eyes burning at the sight of the young man so broken. As he was almost out of earshot, a final lament came across to him; _'Don't ever say good bye.'_

Closing his eyes, Hank left, fleeing to his study. "Oh, I'm," He begged in a ragged whisper, "_I'm only human_." Sinking into his office chair, he let the worries of the past few days wash over him, bringing the tears that only his will had kept at bay cascading down his cheeks.

And at that moment another boy, perhaps more broken that the other, did the same.

BANDON-MAKES-A-POV-CHANGE

"_See my head aches with all this thinking_." Pyro called to his ceiling, tears making dark tracks from his eyes to his pillow, "_Feels like a ship - god, god knows I'm sinking._" Reaching his hand up in the blinding light of the sun, he curled his fingers into fist, "_These questions like a whirl wind, they carry me away."_ Blinking back his tear, he sat up, fighting as his mind tried to call up a face that he didn't want to think about.

Curling against the draft from a hole in the wall, he choked out, "_Who will give me comfort when it's cold?" _

Looking at the brand marks running up his bare arm, he smiled bitterly, letting his mind wonder back to the thing that he woken him, "_And who will I belong to, when the day just won't give in?" _As vibrant blue eyes came to life in his mind, he ran his finger over the ring that Magneto had given to him, _"And who will tell me how it ends and how it all begins?"_ Letting a sob past his lips, he wondered at the torment behind something as small as a ring. As simple as a name. "_O-h- Oh, no_."

"Bobby," He whimpered desperately, wincing at the pain that tiny action caused. Upon looking at the inscription on the ring, he closed his eyes against the ache in his heart. Because there, in curling letters, stood etched in brilliant silver; '_Don't ever say good bye._'

BANDON-MAKES-AN-END


	6. Liquor And Lies

Harlequin Jade: Thank you so much! I really hope that you're not totally disappointed with this chapter, but, you know, WRITERS BLOCK! T,T

XxNeONxX: Thank you, here's the update!

Emeralden Rapely: Thank you for sticking with me!

Evertree: Lol, thanks, I watched it and thought of the best thing I could to tie it in without making it obvious, you know?

Katy-On-A-Cloud: LOL, Augustus is going to get a little dark in coming chapters. He's a complex young man.

Inside your dreams: LOL, I just get tackled to the ground by life A LOT! I really don't mean to start something and then not finish it, but . . . .

Anime Fan For Life: Thank you! Here's the update!

And to all my other fans, I am SOOOOOO Sorry for being that Asshole writer that never updates.

Really, I am! T,T

Anyways, here you go. (CRINGES)

Bandon-Makes-A-Start

Hank cracked open his eyes with a sigh. Hours had passed and sleep wouldn't come for him. His mind kept going over what had happened that day - that year, really. Everything had been settling down, it had seemed. Magneto was hiding, the Brotherhood silent, and people were healing.

He should have known that it couldn't last, the easy peace they had all fallen into. But he never could have guessed that something so volatile would happen. Mutant/Human relations had calmed considerably, the number of mutants assaulted by 'cures' had dropped to almost zero.

Sighing again, Hank got up, showered and dressed himself in his normal, impeccable attire. In the kitchen he found that he wasn't the only one awake at this late (Or was it early . . . ?) hour.

"What brings you to the kitchens, Augustus?" He asked gently, startling the young man out of his chair.

Grumbling, Augustus shot a half-hearted glare at the ambassador before shrugging, returning to his soggy cereal.

"Is that _Fruit-Loops™_?" Hank asked, trying to start a conversation with the young man.

Augustus shook his head, frowning at the mutant across from him, "It's actually _Red River Cereal™_."

"Never heard of it," Hank admitted, looking at the slightly steaming bowl with interest.

"It's from Canada," Augustus sighed, clearly annoyed by Hank's presence, "It's quite common by the border."

"Oh, Hank said. "Is it naturally that consistency or did you alter it in some way?"

Grinding his teeth the agitated teen shot the older man a hostile glare, "How 'bout you go find a computer and Google ™ it?"

"Oh, well," Hank guffawed good naturedly, "Asking you is so much easier."

Augustus rolled his eyes, mumbling something under his breath, "It comes in a jar, like Oatmeal ™ but I put milk in it before I stuck it in the microwave."

"For a bit too long, I surmise?" Hank said, grabbing himself a bagel and some milk from the fridge.

"I got distracted," Augustus muttered darkly, rubbing his temples.

"Is it Pyro?"

Nodding, Augustus considered the person before him, "He isn't what you think he is, you know."

"And what do I think he is?"

"A monster," Augustus answered simply, "Something to be put down before it can cause trouble."

Hank wanted to protest, but the look Augustus gave him put his objections to rest. Clearly the boy could do more than connect to minds willingly. "He is a problem," Hank said softly, "You must realize that."

Augustus nodded, staring at the hand holding his spoon, "Pyro is," he agreed at last, "He's someone that can't be controlled or persuaded. Can't be bargained or reasoned with." Sighing he threw his bowl into the sink, where it shattered with a satisfyingly loud crash. "Broken beyond anything I could do to help him."

Letting his head fall into his hands Augustus gave a bitter snort, "It's my fault, in the end."

"How so," Hank asked, grabbing the teen a can of Dr. Pepper ™.

"Never mind," Augustus smirked bitterly, "It's not like you won't find out for yourself eventually."

Staring blankly at the teen for several minutes, Hank seemed disappointed when he didn't continue. "You know, son," he intoned somberly; "It is often the blameless that feel the harshest sting of guilt."

Nearly chocking on his soda, Augustus broke into mirthless laughter, "Is that so, Mr. I-Happen-To-Have-Made-And-Given-Away-The-Tool-That-Xavier-Used-To-Find-And-Capture-Hundreds-Of-Kids? And what do you think you have to be blameless for? Joining the government task force that helped Magneto gain his impressive power? Or maybe you're totally blameless for not thinking to ask Xavier if all of the students at his school were willing to be there? Or, no," Augustus said in an awe-filled whisper, "Maybe you're _blameless_ for not telling anyone that William Stryker was nuts before he did his damage." Augustus nodded smartly, grinning like a kid at Christmas, "That must be it!" he said enthusiastically, "That's the one thing that cannot be tied to you in anyway."

Hank starred at the smirking teen in front of him before pulling an ornate flask from his pocket, "I admit," he said dejectedly, "that I have committed untold horrors in the name of people I now know to be evil, done things to save myself that I now condemn others for." Taking a deep drink from his bottle he continued, "But I can also say that I have never looked away from my crimes, never run from them." Looking at Augustus he took another drink before setting the flask down on the counter, "How about you, son, can you say the same?"

Augustus smiled sadly before picking the flask up, examining it in the bright kitchen light, "I can honestly say," he whispered, eyes haunted, "that I have never run from what I've done, never denied what I'm willing to do to save myself." Downing a burning gulp he coughed, "If you asked me, I'd tell you that I'd never value the life of someone else above my own." Taking another long draft he stared with watering eyes at Hank, though whether the tears came from the liquor or emotion he couldn't tell, "I'd never call myself human, because I lay no claim on humanity." Blinking at the radiance of the nearest bulb, he slurred, "What am I?"

When Hank failed to give response he hissed around another stinging mouthful, "Can you answer that for me, Mr. Ambassador?" Taking one last swig he stood, tottering slightly, "Do you know what type of monster lurks under this smooth skin? What evil thoughts seethe inside my head?"

Tears flowed down his face as he clinched his hands over his temples, "God," he whimpered, "If I had an ounce of decency I'd end this abomination before you," Turning away from the stunned man he whispered into the darkness, perhaps from the darkest part of his soul, "But I can't even be counted on for that much."

Stumbling away he vanished from sight, leaving the older mutant frozen. Leaning against the counter, it wasn't until he reached out for another drink that he realized that his flask was gone. The thought of pursuing the young man crossed his mind, but he waved it aside; Augustus needed it more tonight, that was for sure.

Bandon-Makes-A-Scene-Change _**Meds, Placebo.**_

"_I was alone, falling free_" He sang, casting a sharp gaze over the crowded club, "_trying my best not to forget"_ Smirking he caught sight of a familiar, if aged bouncer, "_What happened to us, what happened to me, what happened as I let it slip_" snaking a small flame up the mic he tried to recall everything that had led up to this point last time.

"_I was confused by the powers that be, forgetting names and faces_." There is was, he thought, a flicker of recognition flashing across his mind.

"_I was alone staring over the ledge," _He could remember coming here; singing on this stage,_ "trying my best not to forget,"_ Reaching further into his mind he found a jumbled account of the events that had brought him to this place, "_All manner_ _of joy, all manner of glee, and our one heroic pledge." _ He had traveled for a while with someone he met in the tunnels, someone he had become close to, focusing his scrambled mind on the face he felt frustration encase him as a haze descended again, blocking his attempts.

"_How it mattered to us, how it mattered to me, and the consequence_." Blinking against the stage lights he shook his head, manipulating his flames until they covered the floor, _"I was confused by the birds and the bees, forgetting if I meant it."_ Winking at a group of people to his right he chuckled as they swooned.

Stalking to the other side of the platform he stopped, frozen, as a man walked into the room, "_Baby, did you forget to take you're meds?"_ He hissed out, memories flashing through his mind, "_Ba-By_!" he practically screamed as he felt triumph flood his veins. Singing more of the chorus he allowed more flames to flicker to life around him, washing him in their brilliant light, "_Did you forget to take your __meds_?"

"_And the sex," _he moaned, wrapping a thick cord of fire around his legs, winding it upwards_, _"_And the drugs_" he continued, snaking the flames higher, adding more fury to them, "_And the complications." _

Completely encased in flames he raged on, voice distorted by the wind of his element, "_And the sex, and the drugs, and the complications!" _

With a last burst of energy he let his blaze loose, sending it flashing over the crowd, causing them to lose themselves. With a mournful cry he wailed, he dropped the flames, leaving himself almost barren on contrast, "_Ba-by, did you forget to take your _meds?"

"_I was alone_," He said finally, manifesting blazing wings to wrap around himself, "_Falling free, trying my best not to forget."_

Jumping from the stage and into the crowd he floated on a sea of hands until he met his mark. Dropping to the floor in a graceful crouch he carefully avoided the man's eyes, even though he could feel them burning holes through him.

'Let him seek you out,' A voice suggested, whispering through his consciousness, 'He will come to you.'

Pyro sent his thanks back to his friend, heading to the bar for some well-deserved drinks.

Bandon-Makes-A-SCENE/Time-Change

He opened his eyes, his head throbbing as the fading light of day pierced the thin curtains. Rolling over onto his back he reached out with his mind to find his friend where he had left him. "What I wouldn't do for you, Pyro." Sighing Augustus threw off his blankets and swung his sore legs out of bed only to find that he had an audience.

In the doorway stood a girl with dark hair, a large young man, and at least half a dozen other teens. What disturbed Augustus the most though, was that Bobby sat perched on the bed that would have been Pyro's, staring blankly, unseeingly, at the wall.

"What the fuck do you want?" The agitated – and slightly hung over- teen can't help but snarl at them, but most especially at him. It's always been his instinct, after all, to defend himself when uncertain.

The girl next to the brute shuffled her feet uneasily, "We just wanted to wake you up for lunch. Ms. Munroe asked us to."

"And it took all of you to find me, then?" He snarled, "Or did you just want to gawk at the new kid." Standing he turned his back to them, "If you stare at me long enough, who knows, you might get a good show."

Augustus could feel the girl blush from several feet away, "Um, yeah, uh, we'll just wait outside," she choked out, hastily retreating to the hallway and slamming the door shut.

But still Bobby's there; silently watching every muscle in the other teen's arms twitch as they reached for a hoodie and put it on. Something about him irritates Augustus. It picked at his resolve to hate the other boy. He can already feel it, after all. That urge to forgive the teen sitting across from him. Maybe that is why they lasted so long together. The boy on the other side of the wall Augustus has built between himself and the world has a magnetism that can't be denied. It's caught something in the tired mutant, drawls him to the boy that broke John's heart in a way that is utterly infuriating. It's those eyes, maybe. Those eyes that remind Augustus so much of John's. Not in color or shape or anything else that you can see. It's that look, that 'Help me' plea that can only be heard by people with the right type of powers.

Augustus wants to hate him, both for what he did to John and for what he's doing to his resolve now.

"Why are you here?" Bobby croaks, his voice raw with last nights' tears.

Augustus can't help but sigh, "Because I wanted to see the peaceful side of things." It's a lie, of course. Augustus is only here because _he_ asked him to be. John. The teen spoke of this place often, would give every detail he could remember. Augustus winces as he is forced to recall that John is dead. That the boy sitting not three feet from him helped send his only true friend over the edge.

He turns to find Bobby meeting his gaze levelly_. 'He knows'_. The thought is out before Augustus can stop it.

Yes, it's plain as daylight in those crystal blue eyes.

They stare at each other for several seconds, just letting truths pass between them. Finally, though, Bobby looks away, pretending to take in the swaying of trees, "I loved him too." He whispers quietly, just low enough not to be heard through the door.

"Yes," Augustus hisses bitterly, "but not enough." With one last look at the boy across from him, he stormed form the room narrowly avoiding the group huddled at his keyhole. "If you're done eavesdropping," he snarled at them, "you might want to get off the floor."

Before anyone can comment he storm off, leaving them to stumble over each other. "Wait!" The girl calls, "You don't know the way."

Augustus scoffed at her, "Better than you," he whispered, fighting the pain as he sped down hallways more familiar to him than those of him own home. How could he forget this path? Hadn't he traveled it a thousand times? Hadn't he seen the polished wood walls and the wide windows more than he could recall?

Augustus slowed as he turned down the hall that led to Bobby's room, closing his eyes to imagine that he were John, just getting back from the mall, or maybe coming in from his favorite spot in the garden. The grooves of the wall comforted him, slightly, as Augustus dragged shaking fingers along it while walking. Pausing in front of the room he opened his eyes, startled that the door is open, that the room is barren; nothing remained from John's time here. Not his lighters displayed on the headboard or his books on the desk. It was as if the boy had never existed.

Turning away Augustus burned for his friend. That a life so vibrant could so effectively be erased, forgotten.

Forcing the anger down he walked to the dining room, allowing the months of talks with John to guide him there.

Taking in a deep breath he opened the door, causing all conversation to drop.

"There you are, Augustus," Storm breathes, relief evident in her voice, "We had started to think that you'd gotten lost."

He didn't say anything as he took in the assembled kids. Over a hundred faces stared at him, judging him. Glancing at the huddled mass of kids at the end of the table, kids he'd known for years, he nodded.

Walking through the lines of tables as he heard the other kids whispering he couldn't help but feel bitter anger swell in his heart. _'Let them'_, he thought. Whatever they wanted to believe about him meant nothing. After walking calmly to the end of the cafeteria style concession line he took a plate and filled it with some of everything.

Turning he found that everyone was still staring at him, frowning at them he choose an end seat with two chairs between him and the nearest person. Fuck being social, he didn't feel up to it. Several seconds of tense silence pass before the room took up a bearable amount of chatter. Giving an inaudible sigh he started eating. '_Finally'_, he sighed_, 'some peace_.'

He can hear Pyro's laugh even from miles away.

There you are. I know, it was terribly short! (Well, for my usual.) And I know it took a really long time, and there are probably a lot of errors, but I've been gone from my fanfiction, I'm having writers block!

Anyway, tell me what you think?

If it's good, let me know, if not, let me know all the same. No response = Sucky story that should be taken down. Just sayin'.


	7. The Monster I Am

Hey! This is Bandon. I know 'Where have you been, Bandon, you lazy excuse for a writer?' but I do have some good reasons! T, T Life just kinda kicked my ass. Anyways, here is the update. Dedicated to Evertree and Emeralden Rapely, for being the only ones who actually give a flying flip if this thing continues.

It's about six AM on June 18. I am transferring this chapter to a flash drive. I don't have internet right now, and I have to pawn my laptop to keep my electricity on. Sorry, but I'm going to have to wait to post this until I have access to a computer with internet.

Don't give up on me. ;}

Bandon-Makes-A-Start

After the awkward episode in the dining room Augustus managed to slip in with a group of kids going outside. As soon as they were out of sight he faded into the trees, enjoying the hush of swaying branches.

Xavier's was nice, he supposed, in a very upscale way. It's sweeping grounds and flowing fountains. All so unlike anything he had ever known. Maybe that's why John had hated it like he had.

Augustus didn't enjoy it much, either. Nothing fit into his comfort level. The only times he'd been in places this nice hadn't gone well for him.

He paused by a row of tombstones, leaning down to read their inscriptions. He knew who Xavier and Gene were, but Scott was a mystery. He searched his memory for any time John had mentioned him, but came up blank.

"Mustn't have gotten along," he muttered, grazing a hand over the smooth stone.

"Who didn't get along?" A gruff voice asked from behind him.

Spinning Augustus scowled at Logan, falling into a defensive crouch even as Logan raised his hands in surrender.

"Keep it cool, kid," Logan said, edging forward slightly, as though approaching a frightened animal, "I was just coming to pay my respects."

Augustus nodded, straightening up, but never-the-less keeping Logan in his sights as he backed away. As Logan kneeled in the carefully cut grass Augustus froze, a conversation with John flitting through his mind; "You loved her, didn't you?" He asked suddenly, startling them both.

Logan gave him an odd look before he sighed, nodding, "Almost from the moment I met her." Resting a hand on the top of her grave he folded in on himself, grief stealing his bluster, "She was beautiful and smart. Gentle and strong. She made me feel like I had a home." Shaking his head he let his hand drop, gaze focused now on the stone next to hers, "She wanted a husband, not some animal they brought in for treatment."

Augustus cringed at the raw agony in the other's voice, "She was a lady, and you weren't her kind of gentleman."

Logan gave a snort of laughter as he nodded, hands clenching in the grass, "I can understand why John left."

Augustus sighed as he went to sit next to him, "And he understood why you came back."

Logan cocked a brow at him, "He talk about me much, did he?"

Augustus chuckled, relaxing more into their conversation, "It wasn't so much 'talking' as it was me playing around in his head."

"And he let you do this, did he?" Logan asked, surprised.

Augustus smiled bitterly, "He didn't have much of a choice, at the time."

Logan frowned, "You went into his head without asking him?"

"Forced my way in, to be precise." Augustus replied, eyes unfocused in memory, "That was just something that had to be done."

"What do you mean," Logan asked carefully, "it 'had to be done'?" Shifting so that he was looking at Augustus fully he hesitated on his next question.

"I had a choice," Augustus said softly, answering Logan's thoughts, "But not ones that I would choose freely."

"How long were you there for?" Logan asked, though he sensed that the boy next to him was withdrawing.

"For longer than I wanted to be." Augustus whispered, standing abruptly.

"Where are you going?" Logan asked, though he didn't try to pursue him.

If Augustus answered it was lost in the swaying of trees.

Leaning on his arms Logan looked at the place he had been living in for the past few years. What other secrets did it hold, behind its painted windows and solid walls?

Bandon-makes-A-Break

It was already past dinnertime when Augustus climbed through a low window, careful not to set off any of the alarms.

"Finally," he breathed as he fell gently, soundlessly, to the floor.

"You could make an excellent career as a spy, moving like that," Hank said, startling the teen.

Augustus almost jumped out of the window again, but it slammed shut behind him.

"We figured that you'd need to come back at some point," Storm says, flicking on the switch, revealing that Logan and a young mutant also stand in the room.

Augustus tilts his head to the side, trying to penetrate the young girls mind, seeking answers.

"It's no use," She said softly, shuffling her feet, "I block your telekinetic powers from reading anything in this room."

Augustus narrowed his eyes, tensing in expectation of a trap, "And why would that be necessary?"

"We couldn't have you avoiding us all night." Storm said at last, "It's been a day since we talked to Pyro and we need to make sure that he's alright."

"He's fine." Augustus snarled, feeling trapped.

Storm's jaw clenched, "Well, then," she said in a very measured voice, "How about you?"

Augustus gave her a questioning look, "What about me?"

"Where have you been all day? Why didn't you come back for dinner? Did you even eat dinner?" Storm began, hands flying about in exasperation, "We were worried about you, Augustus. We had everyone searching this mansion and not a single person could tell me where you'd gone."

"Were you worried about me or about the information I can give you about Pyro?" Augustus questioned.

Storm sighed, rubbing her temples, "Knowing about what Jo-_Pyro_ is up to helps us all feel better. But that's not my main concern."

"Then what is?" Augustus asked, edging closer to the side door.

"You just escaped torture!" Storm nearly shouted, causing him to freeze in shock, "You're not well enough to be walking around on your own, even in the safety of the mansion. You need to rest not go wondering god knows where until all hours of the night."

Augustus opened and closed his mouth, "Um," he said as he shuffled his feet.

Storm sighed, "I understand that you don't want to be cooped up in here, but you need to get better."

"I am getting better," Augustus defended. It was true, anyway. The more time he spent away from that damned facility the stronger he grew.

"Give it up, Kid," Logan huffed, walking to the fridge and pulling out a container, "Just eat the shit, say you won't do it again, and let us get on with our night."

Storm scowled, "Don't teach the children those kinds of things!" She snatched up the container, transferring the meal to a normal dish before sliding it into the microwave.

Logan smirked as he and Hank ushered the young girl from the room, shutting the door behind them.

Storm sighed as she rested her back against the counter, starring at Augustus in a way that made him distinctly uncomfortable.

Tense silence reigned for several minutes as the food heated, allowing the rooms occupants to size each other up.

"I know you're an adult, Augustus," Storm said at last, taking the plate from the microwave and putting it on the counter. "I understand that you've probably been taking care of yourself for a long time."

Motioning for him to take a seat she grabbed two cans of Dr. Pepper from the fridge. As she sat in the chair opposite Augustus she looked weary, "You've been through awful things, I'm sure. I can't even imagine what it must have been like, living there." Sighing she took a long swallow of soda, clearly wishing for something stronger.

Augustus picked absently at his plate. It looked good; smelled better. As he took a bite of mashed potatoes, more for something to do than actual hunger, he gagged.

Storm frowned at him, "Is something wrong?"

Augustus wanted to laugh; what wasn't wrong? He had left one hell only to be thrust into another. With each memory Pyro unlocked his mental connection grew, smothering him in the other teen's pain.

Augustus shook his head, running a hand through his hair, "I'm not really hungry," He lied, "I ate too much at lunch."

Storm didn't look convinced but she nodded, taking the plate and dumping it down the trash, handing him an apple instead.

Augustus nodded his thanks, biting into it and feeling the fresh juices spill across his tongue. He had always liked fruits. When he had access to them it was all he ate. Watching as the clock on the wall ticked on, he felt unrelenting nausea. Sick to his stomach he took another bite, forcing himself to remain casual. "This is a nice place," he said suddenly, trying to distract from the pain building steadily in his gut.

"It used to be Charles's- I mean, Professor Xavier's home." Storm said, voice catching slightly on her former mentors name.

Augustus nodded, "John talked about it a lot." Tossing the mostly uneaten apple into the trash he stood, taking his soda with him, "For all he hated being confined, he loved to learn."

Storm agreed with a smile, remembering how smart John had been, "As much as he liked to start trouble he was always at the top of the class."

"I don't think he could bring himself to let the opportunity slip him by," Augustus said as he left the room, heading to bed.

Storm called a half-hearted goodnight that Augustus returned before finishing her soda in the starkly lit room.

"Oh, Charles," She whispered, "What should I do?"

Bandon-Makes-A-Break

Morning slips past the manor without much activity. Most of the kids were enjoying their Saturday as the teachers took some much needed rest.

As the world slowly woke people tried to ignore that a new chapter in the war against the humans had begun. Tried not to think about the new faces in the common rooms and kitchen. Or about the sudden flood of doctors, all asking about their feelings, trying to get them to talk about things. Most importantly, things that shouldn't be talked about on a Saturday morning.

Storm hadn't slept much the last night, or the nights before that, really. But she was determined to do her best to make sure that the children were taken care of. She and Hank had discussed what should be done. They had agreed that things had to be sorted out, talked about. Fixed, in whatever way was possible.

She had been reluctant to accept the therapists and counselors into her home. Even more so to allow them to come close to her charges, but Hank had assured her that it was the best way to help.

Fifteen minutes in she could tell that their plan was not going to work. Not only had their new members refused to talk, but now they actively hid from anyone who wasn't part of their group.

Sighing she caught Augustus' gaze, pleading with him silently for his help. He gave her a bitter smile and motioned to the distance between himself and the others. Storm frowned as she noticed that he was several feet from the nearest group. Cocking her head to the side in question she headed over to him, balancing on the arm of his chair.

"Why aren't you over there, Augustus?" She asked quietly, pretending to be interested in the book in his lap.

"Because I'm not one of them," Augustus answered simply, fleeing before she could ask anything else.

Storm watched as he walked past a group of fellow escapees and frowned. Why did they move away from him?

Bandon-Makes-A-Break

It was already past lunch time them Storm finally sent the therapists off. If Hank had been disappointed by their dismissal he wisely kept his mouth shut.

Settling into a steady rhythm of guiding the children to and from healthy activities they began to discuss their options.

"I don't think that we should ask Pyro to speak again." Logan was saying, "He isn't stable enough to handle the hard questions without risking Augustus."

Storm nodded, but Hank frowned, "We have to gather Intel," He said softly, glancing at the largest group of kids, "Pyro was the last person to be tested upon; he's the one who burned the facility down. If anyone can tell us about what went in there, it's him."

"I don't think so," Storm argued, "I've heard some of the others talking about their time there. Nothing descriptive, but they definitely showed that some of them had spent a lot longer than Pyro had in confinement."

"So we get one of the other kids to talk." Logan said simply, gaze scanning the crowded room for a potential candidate.

"They won't even talk to each other about it in more than whispers." Storm said, rubbing her hand down her face, "And we don't know what they've been through. What kinds of wounds we'd be tearing open by going in there blindly."

"Do you think that Augustus would be willing?" Hank mused, "He's already proven to be strong enough to be confronted by his past."

"Leave the kid alone," Logan hissed, claws protruding slightly from between his knuckles, "He's already been through enough."

Hank cocked a brow at him, "When did you become so attached to him?"

Logan huffed, relaxing his hands with a casual shrug, "We talked, is all," He admitted gruffly.

Hank nodded, "That's what I mean." Sighing he looked for the youth in question, spotting him against the far wall, "He seems like the only one willing to express any of his feelings to an outsider."

"Because he's an outsider," Storm whispered as Augustus noticed their attention, "The others won't go near him."

"Why?" Logan asked, actually taking note of the distance between their query and everybody else.

Storm shrugged, bracing herself as Augustus detached himself from the wall.

"You know," The young man whispered as he drew close, "It's considered rude to talk about someone when they're not there."

"It's rude to talk about them when they're there, too," Logan said, "Can't really win, can we?"

Augustus smiled, more a barring of teeth, really, "Then it might be best to talk with me."

"A very reasonable request," Hank said, standing to motion the others towards the doors, "But let's not discuss these things here."

Augustus nodded, allowing the adults to usher him from the room.

Bandon-Makes-A-Break

After an hour of discussion Augustus agreed to answer questions, but only if certain conditions were met. Hank had assured him that contracts weren't necessary, but Augustus insisted, stating that he wouldn't do it without them.

Hank spoke with several White House legal aids, planned the meeting with the President, and got everything else in order.

By the time dinner came and went he was exhausted.

"At least we got him to do it." Storm said soothingly to Hank, "Now we have someone who has the information we need, and the ability to share it."

Hank nodded, "All in all the day can be counted as a success." Sighing he ran a hand through his hair, taking his glasses off and putting them into his pocket, "He is smart, strong." His look turned slightly wary, "But I wonder why he insisted that he be given amnesty. Why he needed so many assurances to be willing to talk."

Storm shrugged but Logan laughed, "I can understand." He said simply, "Who knows what that kid went through. What he had to do to survive." Shuddering he rubbed at his arms, "Imagine what someone as sick as Stryker would be capable of doing."

Hank and Storm nodded, sharing a horrified look before going their separate ways.

Bandon-Makes-A-Break

It was nearly nine O'clock by the time the other students and guests had settled. Nine thirty saw Hank, Logan, Storm and Augustus in the same room they had used for their talk with Pyro.

"If you feel uncomfortable," Storm was saying to Augustus, "Just tell them that you want to switch topics."

Augustus nodded, steeling himself for the coming ordeal, "I know what they're going to ask, so it shouldn't be too hard to give concise answers."

Storm nodded to Hank before taking her seat behind the view of the webcam along with Logan.

"I'm going to mediate during the whole thing," Hank assured Augustus, settling himself firmly within reaching distance of their young charge, "If I feel that they're questions are getting out of hand, I'm canceling this talk until they can get under control."

Augustus nodded and motioned for them to turn on the cam. They waited several seconds for the Whitehouse view to show up, but then they just sat in uneasy silence.

Finally Johnston cleared his throat, smiling wanly at Augustus, "I am sorry to be meeting under these circumstances, Young man," Shuffling his feet he sighed, "I know this must be difficult for you, but I would like to ask you questions about your . . . confinement."

Augustus nodded, "I understand, Mr. President."

Johnston nodded again, glancing down at the clipboard in his hands, "I would like to start off with your name, age, and length of confinement."

"My name is Augustus Punitor and I am nineteen years old," Augustus answered dutifully, before pausing, "And I lived within the Stryker facilities for twenty years, six months, and eighteen days."

The assembled suits began to converse in soft voices but it was Hank who finally asked, "You not only grew up in the facility, but you were conceived there?"

"I was made there, yes," Augustus confirmed, "And I lived in a number of underground research labs before being moved to the Nevada facility."

"How many of these things are there?" Johnston asked in disbelief, "Surely there can't be more?"

"There are seven total, though the one you found is the most recent."

Everybody paled, sharing horrified glances as Augustus spoke again, "The one at Alkali Lake was destroyed with William, and two more were abandoned due to information that a mutant named Mystic stole from their computers."

"We never heard of Magneto destroying any other facilities," Winona said.

"He didn't need to," Augustus answered, "When a facility is compromised all research materials are destroyed and the buildings are either filled in or torn down."

"And when you say research materials . . . ?" Johnston asked with trepidation.

"Whatever the scientists were working on." Augustus said, shrugging.

"That's sick," One of the cabinet members said, face losing color, "How did this go on for so long? Why didn't anyone notice?"

"It's not that no one noticed," Augustus said bitterly, "but that no one cared." Rubbing the nape of his neck he settled further into the chair, eyes haunted, "I escaped from that hell a total of thirteen times. Each attempt was harder than the last, each reprieve shorter." Closing his eyes he absently traced a scar that ran from the underside of his left wrist disappearing into his long sleeve, "The last time was when I was sixteen," He whispered, "Stryker Jr. had brought in a new round of victims and I used the opening. When they brought me out to judge them I switched places with a young girl with powers similar to mine."

"What do you mean, 'judge,'?" Johnston asked.

Augustus opened his eyes and motioned to Hank, "As I'm sure you are aware, I can look into the minds of those around me."

Johnston nodded, starring between his Ambassador and the young man across from him.

"What you don't know is that I can also manipulate anyone who has ever come into contact with me." Smirking at the President he continued, "The one gift my sperm donor gave me, ironically, and also my greatest curse."

"If it allowed you to escape so often, how can it be considered a curse?" Hank asked.

"I'm specifically designed to obey them," Augustus said bitterly, wrapping his arms tightly around his waist, "They screened hundreds of viable embryos looking for the few of us that had inherited the right combination of mutation to allow for genetic modifications."

"What does that mean?" Johnston asked, sharing confused glances with his staff, "You were created? In a lab?"

"Sortta," He shrugged, "Sperm from one mutant fertilized eggs from several others. Once an egg was ready to be tested it was placed in a mechanical womb. This womb, made mostly of processors that fed the embryos essential nutrients, kept the unfinished bundles of cells alive. When all tests were completed the fertilized eggs were separated and those that didn't meet standard were destroyed while the others were placed inside of comatose patients to be carried to term."

Faces paled and Augustus smirked, though his eyes held no humor, "I had four half-brothers and two half-sisters. None of the embryo's matching my genetic makeup survived."

At least one cabinet member had to take a deep breath for composure. Johnston looked ready to vomit again.

"When you escaped," Hank asked suddenly, more for something to do than actually wanting the information, "where did you go? Did you try to get help?"

Augustus smiled bitterly, wrapping his arms around himself, "If I could get beyond whatever forest, desert, or frozen wasteland they had me in, I'd hide. I go underground, as far as I could, and allow myself to heal."

"From what?" Someone in the back asked.

"From whatever they were doing to me." Augustus answered in a distant voice, "The first time was just after my awakening. I was so sore and weak that I couldn't do much more than crawl into a ditch and lie there. I wasn't strong or experienced enough with my powers to keep myself hidden."

Taking a shuddering breath he closed his eyes, "My abilities are a curse because, just as they can manipulate others, they allow others to manipulate me."

Upon opening his eyes Winona gasped, covering her mouth as horror ran through her own eyes, "My god," she whispered, searching Augustus' face. The others looked between her and him with frowns, not understanding their exchange.

Augustus smiled and nodded, "Whenever I sleep I subconsciously try to locate my sperm donor. So long as he was alive I could never be free."

"Couldn't you stop it?" Johnston asked, "Keep yourself from going into a deep sleep?"

Augustus nodded, "When I learned my powers better I did. But there is only so long you can go without resting properly. A large portion of my powers is rooted in the subconscious part of my mind. Whenever I went too long without accessing them, they'd turn on me, driving me to the brink of insanity." Laughing bitterly he pressed his fingers into his eyes, "Do you know what it's like to have your own mind turn against you? To know that the instant you let your guard down someone else will be inside your head?"

Crouching further into his chair he breathed deeply, holding his head in his hands, "Do you know what it's like to own nothing?" he asked desperately, brokenly, "Of all the things I suffered through the years, do you know what I've hated the most?"

Hank and Johnston shared a wary glance; they really didn't what to know what could be more horrible than what they'd heard. Didn't want to be witness to this young man's pain.

They didn't get to choose, though, because Augustus continued in that soft, desperate, mournful tone, "It's knowing that someone owns you. Every part of you. Even your thoughts. Even your memories." Clenching his eyes shut again he hissed out; "It's knowing that the closest thing to a father you're going to get is the one that gives them the means to drag you back to hell."

"Who?" Johnston asks, though by his voice he already knows.

"Jason Stryker," Augustus says finally, dual colored eyes shut against the pain, "I was created and violated by the people that should have been my family." Opening his eyes again he took in their horrified faced before giving them a manic grin, "Don't pity me;" he said with a mirthless laugh, "I've done things to save myself that make me more of a monster than they could ever be."

"You don't know what I've done!" He yelled, jolting to his feet, "You don't know how many people I've used!" Augustus sent his chair crashing into the wall, "You have no idea what I'm capable of, what kind of freak I am!" With nothing left to throw he turned his anger and despair inward, clawing at his own face and arms, shredding the skin, fighting as the others tried to restrain him, "Do you know what kind of sinful waste I am?"

Falling to his knees he gasped, "I'm nothing, nothing worth saving."

It was in a deep swirl of black that Augustus finally broke.

Bandon-Makes-An-end

Well, there it is. Hope you like it, and all. Please R/R

Don't worry, Next chapter (Yes, I'm already writing it, It will be out.) will have Pyro in it. This one (and the last one) were just getting to know Augustus.

Oh, and if you would be so kind, let me know what you liked/didn't like in this chapter. I really only made it for one person, but if anyone else wants to throw their two cents in, that's fine.


	8. Tender Torture

HubrisP: Shhh, no one is allowed to know yet!

Inside Your Dreams 24: Thank you so much! Your review made me so happy. Why does everyone have a :p face when they talk about Pyro coming back into the picture? Gosh, I must be behind the times.

Emeralden Rapely: Be patient! I just got back! LOL, I'll get to it. I just want to introduce a few key factors and get you all acquainted with the back story I've made for the characters.

Hush Hush :Next chapter, Promise. ;}

Katy On A Cloud: Here it is! Hope you like. Oh, and what does TBH mean? I figured it was 'To Be Honest' but I wasn't sure. T,T I hope it's not something bad!

Bandon-Makes-A-Start

As awareness floods his mind he recognizes his surroundings. The clinical smell of antiseptic, the false softness of the bed, but, most importantly, the bite of restraints. Through the overall ache he can feel a needle in his arm. Whatever drug they had come up with this week pumping through his veins.

Movement to his left draws his attention. Someone is there, watching him. He can feel their eyes upon him. He doesn't want to look, doesn't want them to know that he's conscious.

"Are you there?" a voice asks softy, "Are you there?"

Such a kind voice . . .

_It's a trick_, his mind supplies; _they're trying to get you to lower your guard_. He stays silent for a long while, breathing evenly through the pain.

_Do you dream; that the world will know your name? _

Someone's singing . . .

_So tell me your name. _

What is his name? The steady silence in his head gives him no answer.

_Do you care about all the little things?_

Is it important, this name?

_Or anything at all?_

He doesn't think so, he can't remember it anyways. His mind is heavy, weighted. He can't think.

_I want to feel, all the chemicals inside_.

A hand rubs the soreness at the crease of his elbow.

_I wanna feel . . . _

Like this? This stinging, painful numbness?

_I want a sunburn ._ . .

Don't those hurt?

_Just to know that I'm alive . . . _

To prove that you're alive . . .

_To know I'm alive. _

Pain to prove your continued existence?

"Is he all right?"

That isn't part of the song. It is not the Voice, he has heard it before, but he doesn't want it now. The singing stops and the silence weighs on him.

"He will be." It's the Voice, but harder this time. Why?

"I'll leave you to it, then," Shuffling feet, a door hisses open, then closed. Others remain, besides his singing Voice.

The silence continues, and he doesn't like it. He can feel his lips moving, trying to finish the song, "Don't tell me if dying, cause I don't wanna know," His lips are chapped, throat raw. He feels the air shift as his silent spectators move.

Clenching his eyes against a flood of light he tries to move, tries to defend himself. He reaches for his powers and finds them muted, subdued. Panic grips his chest, forcing a strangled gasp from his lips.

"Be calm," A voice says, closer this time, but a wary distance away, "Everything's fine."

He strains against his bonds, using every bit of strength to tear at them. He hears one rip free and the voice is more urgent, "Augustus, please. You're hurting yourself."

More steps sound, further away, drawing close. He redoubles his effort, desperate to be able to do more than lie there as they use him.

"Augustus," The Voice, softer than the others, "Augustus, stop it." The others stop, paused by that Voice.

Someone moves, the Voice, probably, and cool wetness rests against his parched mouth. He wants to drink, but something stops him. He knows he shouldn't drink the things that they give him. He tries to push it away, but remembers the restraints on his arms, his legs; his chest. He can't move, and panic sets in.

"Shh," The Voice soothes, "It won't hurt,"

He knows that line. It's what they tell him as they slide the needle home, as they pinch and poke and prod. He can't take it, not again.

He struggles, feeling the fragile skin on his arms shred.

The cup moves away, fingers digging into his shoulders.

"Augustus, stop!" The Voice is yelling, but he isn't frightened. He remembers now.

"John," It's more of a sob than a word, but the other relaxes his grip, "John, where am I?" It's a stupid question, of course. He knows where he is, if not the exact room. He's underground, in some god forsaken bunker. He's tied down, pumped full of whatever experimental drug they were testing.

"Your safe," John answers, always answers, "I came to get you."

"Please," he whimpers, "Please, John, don't take me back." He doesn't care if the others hear, if they try to stop it, "Please, just end it."

John sits on the cot, stroking his hair, "You're not going back. I'm taking you away." He doesn't comment on Augustus' request, he never does.

Augustus relaxes, though he doesn't open his eyes, a tired smile tugging the edges of his lips, "I love it when you lie to me."

When John speaks again he can hear the bitter laughter in his voice, "It's the only time you listen to a word I say."

"Hm," Augustus hums, feeling tired, "It's the only time I can trust what you say."

"Augustus?" The first voice asks, making him tense, "How are you feeling?"

He stays silent. Wishing that the other people would go away.

"He's going to need more rest," John says finally.

Augustus frowns, this is wrong. They don't ask how he feels. They don't let John talk to him.

"Alright," The voice agrees, backing out of the room, "Let us know when he's feeling better."

"John?" He asks, uncertain. He can't tell what's going on. The drugs are making him groggy. He can't think. His eyes burn when he tries to open them.

"It's okay," John answers, "That was a doctor. He just wanted to check on you."

Augustus frowns, the doctors don't check on him unless it's bad. He doesn't feel bad. Sore, yes, tired, definitely, but not bad enough for this level of care. "What happened?"

"You were answering questions. Someone asked the wrong one and you went off." John answered dutifully, "You've been in and out of consciousness for two days."

"What questions?" Augustus asks, fighting the dreadful sleepiness that was engulfing him.

"You were talking about Nevada." John said, running his warm fingers over Augustus' scalp, "I don't know what all happened, but they said that you had a fit. That you started to hurt yourself." Undoing the remaining restraints he laid a hand on Augustus' forehead, "They tied you down, put you on drugs to numb the pain."

"Why am I so tired?" Augustus mumbles, already half asleep.

"You need to rest," John answered simply, placing a tender kiss to Augustus' lips, "Don't fight it."

He wanted to fight, to stay awake and enjoy this reprieve while it lasted. "Don't go," he slurs.

"I'll be right here when you wake up," John promised, just as he always does.

"Sing for me," It's barely distinguishable, but John knows him.

"What do you want today," John asks softly, gently stroking his hair, "What do you need?"

"Just pick up where you left off," He's tired, so, so tired.

"Don't tell me if I'm dying," John sings softly, lying next to him on his cot, "'Cause I don't want to know."

The brightness ebbs, but enough light remained to let him see, is he wanted, "If I can't see the sun, maybe I should go."

He smiles into a warm chest, "Don't wake me 'cause I'm dreaming, of angels on the moon," He whispers softly.

John kisses the top of his head lovingly, so gentle, so soft, "Where everyone you know, never leaves too soon."

The rest of the words registered in Augustus' mind, but were washed away by dreams of far-away freedom and unreachable beauty.

Bandon-Makes-A-Break

The lights are dim when he opens his eyes. The stark white of the room is no more inviting but the shadows welcome him. He sits up and looks around his small room. The bed he was lying on was surrounded by three plush chairs and a good sized rolling table.

No one was in the room with him, but he could hear muffled voices from the other side of the door. Tossing off the covers silently he slipped to the floor, padding across the room.

"-Not ready." Someone was saying heatedly.

"We don't have time," a different voice countered, "It's been days since we've managed to get any kind of information to the front lines."

"What good is it going to do if he breaks down again?" A third person questioned.

"He needs to sleep it off," The first voice said gruffly, "We can't put the kid in danger like that."

"I agree with Logan," A woman, probably Storm, said, "If we wake him up before his mind has time to adjust it could damage his brain permanently."

"We can't risk the safety of a country for one boy," the second person said exasperatedly, "We cannot put his life before the fate of the war."

"We're not soldiers, Hank!" Storm said, "These aren't weapons we're talking about; they're kids!"

"Children, yes;" Hank said tiredly, "With enough raw power to level a city with nothing more than a thought."

"We gotta try to talk it out with them," Logan said, "If we can just get them to hold off for a little longer-"

"But they won't," Hank interrupted angrily, "They know that we're not ready and they will take that advantage without a seconds thought."

"What we need is for the kids to give up a little more intel." Logan said, "If we know enough about what went on in there we might be able to off-set this shit-fest."

"The others are scared," Storm said softly, "They've been through too much for us to just go digging through their pasts blindly." Giving a deep sigh she laughed bitterly, "Look what it got us with Augustus."

Augustus backed away from the door, not wanting to hear any more of their discussion. Sitting on the bed he wrapped his arms around himself.

Several minutes later, after the talk had tapered off and the other had left, the door creaked open slowly. Augustus tensed, waiting for someone to enter but the door just stood slightly ajar.

"Hello?" Augustus said at last, crouching down into a defensive position.

"Can I come in?" A familiar voice asked and Augustus got up.

"You know you can, Pyro," he said.

"Sometimes," The other youth said as he walked through the door, "I get the feeling you'd mind-fuck me blind if I didn't knock."

Augustus smiled, "In case you didn't notice," He quipped, "You didn't knock that time, either."

"Gasp," Pyro said in mock-horror, "You're right!"

Augustus shook his head, "Sometimes I wonder how we became friends."

Pyro shrugged his shoulder, "Lack of options, I guess."

Augustus rolled his eyes, "Smartass,"

Pyro grinned before settling himself next to Augustus on the bed. "I was worried about you, you know?" He asked eventually, "I couldn't reach you and no one would tell me anything."

Augustus ducked him head sheepishly, "I'm sorry about that, you know." Pyro nodded, leaning his shoulder against Augustus'.

"What happened?"

Augustus looked uncomfortable, "They stumbled onto something I wasn't ready to share."

Pyro nodded, looking into his friend's dual-colored eyes. Silence passed between the two for several seconds before Pyro looked away. "You called for him a lot,"

Augustus smiled sadly, "I thought you were him, when I first woke up. I thought that I was back in the facility." A tear slid down his cheek, "I thought that you were my John, and god-damn it, I prayed so hard for it to be true."

Pyro nodded his head, looking tormented, "I'm sorry I can't be him, Augustus, I really am."

Augustus shook his head, "You shouldn't feel bad."

Pyro stayed quiet for almost a minute before he began to speak again, never looking at Augustus, "Are you mad at him? For leaving you there?"

Augustus flinched like he had been slapped, "I don't blame him," He sighed, "I understand breaking. I understand why he couldn't hold on any longer."

"You mean," Pyro said harshly, "You understand why he let go?"

Augustus turned away, "Don't talk about him like that, Pyro. He's part of you, too."

"But what part," Pyro whispered, edging closer to Augustus, "Is it him that wants to hold you?" Pulling Augustus against his chest he inhaled the other boy's scent, "Is it the residue of his soul that clings to you, against all logic?" Tilting Augustus chin up he kisses away his tears, "Is it that part of him in me that longs to soothe your troubled mind?"

Augustus chocked on a sob, clinging to Pyro's shirt as tears streamed down his face, "Why do you taunt me, Pyro? Why can't you let me pretend, if only for a moment?"

"Because you don't deserve it," Pyro whispered into Augustus' mouth, "You don't deserve the reprieve from my past." With a slight sigh he pressed his lips down, swallowing the sounds of Augustus' misery.

Augustus wanted to push away, to fight this tender torture. But he couldn't, not when the body holding him felt so familiar, so warm. The marionette against him might have been nothing but a blank slate, but he would take whatever he could get. After all, taking what didn't belong to him was the only thing he was good at.

Bandon-Makes-An-End

Hope you like it! R/R


	9. Of Monster and Men

Hey, Bandon here! I know it's been a while (not as long as I usually leave for, so at least I have that!) But anyways, I'm sorry it's taken so long! Oh, and the false alarm yesterday; I removed a portion of the previous chapter because I thought that it was a better end. I place portions of it here, but I edited a great bit. I hope you all read and enjoy.

I know that I would normally put my thanks for reviews up here, but I'm just going to send you all PM's to let you know that I've updated. R/R! Or just Read, anything you want. ;}

Bandon-Makes-A-Start

After hours, or maybe days, they all met in the same conference room as before. Augustus glanced guiltily towards the new chairs.

"I want to be as clear as possible," Hank was saying, "If anything makes either of you uncomfortable, we will break this meeting for however long it takes to regain control."

Augustus and Pyro both nodded, sitting in their assigned seats.

"And three," Logan said, holding up his fingers to finish the countdown.

"Good evening, Augustus, Pyro," Johnston said, nodding his head.

Both young men nodded in return, shifting to get more comfortable in their seats.

"What I want to discuss with you, boys," Hank said as he shuffled some papers about, "Is your initial confinement."

"We already have a pretty good idea about what Pyro went through, but we know next to nothing about the screening process for incoming mutants." One of the military advisers said.

"When I was brought to the facility," Pyro began, "I was judged by Augustus and then taken to a medical bay where I finished healing. After that it was pretty much what I showed you in our last chat."

More than one person shuddered at the reminder. Hank coughed, trying to distract from the unpleasant images in his mind, "You said that Augustus 'judged' you."

Pyro nodded, waving for Augustus to continue.

Rubbing his hands down his thighs Augustus cleared his throat, "One of my psychic abilities allows me to see other people's powers." Shrugging he took a deep breath, "If I determined that a mutant was a threat I was supposed to alert the doctors so that the subject could be . . . disposed of."

Johnston and many others paled, "How could you do that?" he asked in revulsion, "Pick and choose who got to live . . ."

Augustus slid his eyes closed, a bitter smile tracing his lips, "It's easy to say what you would do," He whispered, "But you'll never know, not for sure." Resting his hands on his thighs he sighed, "Not until the firing squad's got you in their sights."

Augustus opened his eyes and he looked so tired, so weary. So needlessly worn and weathered. "When you're back hits the wall and the only thing keeping you going is the animal in you that refuses to die."

Johnston and many of the veteran cabinet members nodded, "I know what war is. I've stared more than a few bullets in the face and I promise you I remember what it felt like."

"War," Augustus spat, palms sliding against his thighs, "The things I did were not acts of war, Mr. President; they were acts of survival. I didn't do any of what I did for a grand cause." Shaking his head his eyes turned haunted, "I stole the lives of hundreds to further my own goals." Augustus smiled bitterly, "By the time I was ten their influence wore off, but the stronger I got the stronger my connection to Jason Stryker grew."

"And was he able to control you?" Johnston asked, "By using his powers was he able to manipulate you into doing the things that you did?"

"Jason Stryker was no more than a doll, Mr. President, wheeled around for the amusement of a man who held no humanity." Augustus said quietly.

"Then how was this connection between the two of you utilized?" Johnston asked, "If he couldn't move or think for himself how could it have influenced you?"

"When I grew strong he would leech my powers, drawl them into his body. Whenever this happened he would try to move, try to function."

"So he was still present, in his mind?" Johnston said, rubbing a hand down his face.

"His mind still worked," Augustus agreed grimly, "But only on a fundamental level. Due to William's tinkering he was a perpetual child, trapped until the end of his days with a child's mentality."

"And this was how he tracked you?" One of the senators asked, confused, "When you escaped he did what? Tattled?"

"In a sense," Augustus agreed, "Whenever I left he would connect to my mind; see the world through my eyes. Those images he would then transmit to William."

"And then William would find you." Johnston said, finally understanding.

"And I would be punished, yes," Augustus said, "By the men who should have been my family."

Silence rang through the room, turning the very air awkward and tense.

"I think we need a break," Hank finally said, jostling to his feet, "a cup of tea for me and a bite of lunch for the others."

"Very good," Johnston said, ushering his members from the room.

When everyone but Augustus and Pyro had fled the room only a companionable silence remained.

"I wouldn't have been able to tell them something like that." Pyro said finally, moving his chair closer, "I wouldn't be able to bring myself to it."

"You would," Augustus said with a sad smile, "If something important were on the line."

Pyro tilted his head back, looking at the ceiling, "Maybe," He mused, "For something I cared about."

"Like you care about Augustus?" Bobby said, standing defiantly in the doorway, looking between the two.

Pyro's face closed off as he stood, blocking Augustus from the other teen's view, "And what business is it of yours?"

"You know why I care," Bobby said softly, coming into the room and shutting the door, "You know that I love you, John."

"If you knew him at all," Pyro snarled, "You would be able to recognize that _he_ no longer resides in this body."

"I do know him," Bobby said, moving to stand in front of Pyro, "That's how I'm able to see him standing here, just like he always has." Running his hands up Pyro's sides he pulls the other teen to him, "It's how I can feel him in my arms, different than he was, but still there for me to hold."

"You think you knew him," Pyro whispered, tilting Bobby's head up, "You think you knew who he was." Leaning down he ran his tongue from Bobby's collar bone to the edge of his jaw, "Why, then" Pyro growled huskily, biting along Bobby's jaw, "Did you leave him?"

With a feral growl he gave a biting kiss, devouring the young man in front of him. Breaking the kiss he left a trail of blood falling from Bobby's split lip. Grabbing a handful of Bobby's hair he yanked his head back, exposing the other teen's neck, "I hate you," Pyro whispered into Bobby's ear, "I hate you for leaving him on that rock, and I hate him for leaving Augustus to that hell." Pushing Bobby away from him he glanced back at the boy in question, "And Augustus hates me for not being him." Bending down he kissed Augustus tenderly on the lips, running a hand through his soft hair, "And he loves me for it, too."

With a snarl for Bobby he left, crossing the room in no more than three strides, slamming the door on his way out.

Bobby stared after him, lost, adrift. He didn't seem to breathe as he felt something inside of him break.

"John won't come back," Augustus said softly, "Pyro is all that remains."

"Then why do you cling to him?" Bobby asked after a moment of stillness, still not looking away from the door, "Why do you continue to follow him?"

"You already know why," Augustus said softly, "It's the same reason that you hold onto the fragile remains to a childish love." With that he stood.

"I betrayed the man," Bobby whispered just before Augustus could cross the threshold, "And you betrayed the monster."

"And now we are both drawn to this perverse mix of the two." Augustus said as he disappeared into the outside light, leaving Bobby feeling desolate in the dark.

Bandon-Makes-A-Break

They ate and reconvened, settling into their seats just as the sun was at its highest.

"Okay, Augustus," Johnston said eventually, "I need you to tell me about the process you spoke of earlier; this 'judging' that you did." Shifting uncomfortably in his seat he continued, "Why did you do it?"

Hank coughed, warning the President that his line of questioning was getting too direct, but Augustus nodded before he began to speak.

"I hardly had a choice, in the beginning," Turning he displayed several round scars running along the back of his neck. "My biological father was used to create a drug that could control mutants."

"We know that William made a drug," Johnston said, "But we didn't know that Jason had anything to do with it."

Augustus nodded, "Jason Stryker's brain secreted a highly volatile chemical. When that chemical is harvested from the spinal cord it can work as the mutant version of a roofie."

"Wouldn't that have paralyzed him?" One of the cabinet members asked, "Why would he be willing to go through that?"

"He didn't have a choice," Augustus said, "William kept him in suspended animation until he could be controlled. And after . . ." Augustus shook his head sadly, "There wasn't much left of him by the time I came along. Just a lifeless dolls."

"That's sick," Johnston said, horrified, "To his own son."

"And there's the problem," Pyro said, "William didn't see Jason as his son, he was just a mutant. He and Keith refused to acknowledge that they could be related to a creature." Pyro smiled bitterly, "I'd much rather suffer my entire captivity again than live five minutes of Augustus' life."

Faces paled but Pyro refused to elaborate, looking pointedly at Augustus, waiting for his friend to explain.

After an eternity of awkward silence Augustus cleared his throat, "I wasn't kept like the others, at first." Rubbing his hands down his thighs again he swallowed, "When I was young they kept me in a small, sterile room. I was fed and changed; I slept with a stuffed toy." Eyes growing distant he smiled softly, "When I used to cry a woman would come into my room and hold me, sing to me in a lovely voice. I thought that she was my mother."

"Who was she?" Hank asked.

"A worker," Augustus said, sadness creeping into his voice, "Someone who pretended to love me for years. I loved her, like I've never loved anything else. I was young and gave the pure, innocent love that can only spring from a child's heart."

"What happened to her?" Winona asked, leaning closer.

"When I was six it all began to change," Augustus whispered, rubbing his thighs in what must have been a compulsive habit, "I began to dream about my caretakers. When they left my pin I still saw them, heard them."

"Your powers awoke," Hank said, "Before puberty?"

"It was odd," Augustus answered, "I hadn't had any kind of emotional shock, so I shouldn't have gained my powers then, if I ever did."

"What do you mean?" Someone towards the back asked, "Don't mutants all change at puberty?"

"Not all," Hank answered, "Mutation is evolution; brought on by a need."

Augustus nodded towards Pyro, "It's when you go through intense physical and emotional strain that the change occurs. For most this happens during puberty, when hormones and social adjustments happen naturally."

"So," A balding man from the front row asked, "The change between mutant and human only happens to a certain percentage of children, not all?"

"Correct, Senator Naylor" Hank said, "According to data collected in a ten year study, the age at which a mutant comes into their powers is directly linked to economic status. Few children from upper-middle class households ever know about their powers, and those that do learn of them when going through puberty."

"God," Naylor said, rubbing a hand down his face, "I'd always just assumed . . ."

"That it was something unnatural?" Augustus questioned icily, "That only freaks did it?"

Naylor looked away from those chilling dual-colored eyes, "I just never knew that mutation was a result of trauma."

"Mutation is an adaption, Senator," Pyro said, standing, "it's how humans choose to deny us that goes against the natural order of life."

Uneasy glances swept the room as Pyro walked out.

"He's coming back," Johnston said hesitantly, "Isn't he?"

Everyone looked to Augustus, who shrugged, "I have no control over what he does."

"He will be back when he is ready," Hank said, "for now the only one we need answers form is Augustus."

As Johnston opened his mouth to answer a blast sounded from the front of the mansion.

Locking eyes with Hank Johnston nodded, calling out orders to his own members.

"Move!" Logan yelled, racing past them with his claws extended, "These fuckers are going to learn not to mess with us."

The others tore after him, forging into the cacophony of blood curdling screams and gun shots.

Bandon-Makes-A-Break

Chaos surrounded them; unknown soldiers swarmed in through a hole in the outer wall, flooding the mansion like rats from a sewer. Children ran between them, trying to escape, trying to fight, as gun blasts sounded and bodies hit the floor. Logan's agonized scream came from the middle of the throng and Storm froze. She wasn't a soldier; she wasn't a leader, not like this.

"Hold your ground!" Pyro shouted, manipulating his flames to surround an incoming wave, "Don't let them get to the children!"

In a flash the students stopped and turned, brandishing their powers as they took out the forces. Strom saw one of the new children take down several attackers with poisonous darts while others ushered the youngest children from the room. Strom rushed forward, using gusts of wind to knock the men back, "Don't kill them!" She screamed over the fray.

Pyro looked at her, his eyes blazing crimson, "When they try to kill us?" He questioned, distracted for the space of several seconds, just long enough for one of the men to aim at him. Before the shot could go off Bobby was there, shielding the other teen with his crystalized body, "Be careful, John!" He shouted as he froze the man to the ground.

"I'm not John!" Pyro said back, encasing another group in flames.

Bobby smirked, an expression that looked wrong on his face, "Agree to disagree," He said blandly before disappearing into the fray.

"Take them down," Pyro ordered, "Do what you have to, this is war!"

Strom screamed for him to stop, for the others, for these children, to halt this bloodshed. No one paid her any attention as more men seemed to pour from unseen spouts, flooding them. Storm tried to force them out with buffets of wind, tried to freeze them with gales, but they kept coming, kept shooting.

And then she saw it; one of the soldiers she had spared raised his gun, aimed it, and pulled the trigger. A scream lodged in her throat as agony ripped through her, searing its way through her body. The world began to fade as she fell back, landing on top of something soft. Trying to lift herself she turned enough to see. She wished she hadn't; lying under her was a boy, no older than fifteen.

"Artie?" She asked softly, shaking his shoulder, "Artie are you okay?" Sobs wracked her body as she shook him, pleading for him to open his eyes, for him to move. "Please," she moaned desperately, dragging him into her lap, "Please wake up." In the chaos around her she saw what she had always feared the most; her student lay upon the floor, some suffering and others already dead. With a mournful cry she clung to the young boy in her lap, clung to him as though the force of her grip would bring him back.

"Strom," A voice said above her, "Storm you have to get up,"

Storm shook her head, refusing to meet Hank's gaze, "I can't" she choked, "I can't let him go."

"We have to leave," Hank said, pulling at her arm, trying to drag her away, "We don't have enough resources to combat these men."

"But we're X-Men," She gasped desperately, "We're trained for this."

Hank knelt down, "We're not," He said sternly, and for the first time Storm noticed that he was bleeding, "A handful of untrained mutants can't hope to contend with hundreds of madmen."

Looking into the violence around them Storm caught Pyro's attention. She saw the pain in his eyes as he took in the body lying across her lap. Curling a hand through Artie's hair she felt her resolve harden, "Kill them," She whispered harshly, "Let them burn."

Hank was talking over her, urging a retreat but she knew that Pyro had understood. She saw the grim determination I his eyes as he nodded. In the blink of an eye the incoming swarm was engulfed, ablaze. Agonized scream deafened her but she didn't look away. She watched as the invading men smoldered before her and she felt nothing for them. Holding this child to her chest she felt nothing as their flesh melted and their bones turned to ash.

"Burn you bastards" She whispered, clutching Artie's lifeless body, "And may god have mercy on your souls."

Because she wouldn't, she couldn't. Surveying the wreckage of her home she knew that there was no going back. As she placed Artie gently on the floor she followed the others outside, intent upon destroying every last one of the monsters that were invading her home.

Bandon-Makes-a-Break

It was almost an hour before Johnston's taskforce got there. By then the wounded had been cared for and the few surviving attackers were bound and gagged.

Stepping gingerly around the charred remains littering the floor their commander stopped in front of Hank, "Sir," He said, shaking Hank's hand, "I'm Captain Blake." Looking around him he said cautiously, "What happened?"

Hank laughed mirthlessly, "War happened," With a heaving sigh he motioned to the remains, "Just minutes after the blast we were overrun. As far as we can ascertain over two hundred men and women swarmed this school and the surrounding areas."

"Where did they come from?" The men asked.

"They're civilians," Augustus said, "Most of them were, anyways."

"What do you mean 'civilians'?" Blake questioned.

"Citizens," Augustus answered, "Work-a-day people."

"But why would they attack a school?" Blake wondered aloud as he surveyed the damage.

"They were part of the movement," Augustus answered, closing his eyes, "They were looking for mutants to kill and one of them had known how to get here."

"But children," Blake spat, eyes landing on one of the young bodies.

"Children with the ability to take down two hundred grown men," One of the SWAT operatives muttered.

Blake cast him a withering glare, "Out, Rodgers."

Rodgers frowned at him but did as he was told, leaving through the hole that had been blasted through their wall.

Hank nodded his head in Rodgers' direction, "That is what happened, Captain Blake; men who know no better start dissent. Maybe they don't mean anything by it, maybe they do, but this is the outcome."

Blake nodded his head, "I cannot excuse my man's behavior, sir, but he will be dealt with."

Hank sighed, "That is hardly the most important matter on hand, but I thank you for your diligence, Captain."

Blake nodded, "What were the losses, Sir?"

Hank flinched, "How many young lives were lost?" When Blake nodded grimly he continued, "Five. Two girls and three boys, ranging in age from fourteen to seventeen."

"Have you contacted anyone else?"

"No one to contact, I'm afraid." Hank said sadly, rising to his feet, "Most of the children here have been abandoned by their parents or were forced to run from unhealthy environments."

Nodding Blake motioned for his men to take the prisoners, "If we get any information out of them we'll let you know."

"Not necessary," Hank said, motioning to where Augustus still had his eyes closed, "Young Augustus here has been shifting through their minds since the fighting stopped."

"Can you tell us anything, Son?" Blake asked Augustus, though the other never opened his eyes.

"There are no more of them, if that's what you're worried about." Augustus said distractedly, "They were a combined force of a little less than a thousand before they attacked a Brotherhood base of operations. Less than a hundred managed to retreat when that plan failed. Shortly after that they decided to attack us, gathering as many fanatics as they could on their way here from around the Great Lakes."

"Why come all the way here, though?" Captain Blake asked, "They would have had to cross a great distance to make it here, and with two hundred troops that's no mean feat."

"They were looking for Leech," Augustus said, finally opening his eyes, "They were going to force him to make the cure." Laughing bitterly he continued, "They were nothing but simple fanatics, their plan was doomed to fail." Sighing he ran a hand through his hair, "Leech doesn't know how to make the cure, and even if he did they had no access to the tools that would be needed to produce it, even on a small scale."

"Where is the boy?" Captain Blake asked, "Does he need to be taken to a secure area?"

"Leech is with Magneto," Augustus said, "He has been since the start of the war." Moving to stand near Hank he continued, "They went to the Brotherhood base looking for him, and when that failed they figured that there was a chance that he would be here."

"Do you have an exact number to report?" Blake asked.

"They had one hundred and eighty-six people in their group, and only the seven here have survived." Augustus answered.

Blake nodded, though the eyes of his men showed trepidation, "If you can, I would like a detailed report of the casualties and any kind of information you can spare about this faction."

Augustus nodded, though he walked away, "If I find the time, Captain, I'll get it to you."

Blake said nothing as the teen walked off, simply watching him go. Turning back to Hank he let out a weary breath, "I hate to be the one to say it, but that kid is scary."

Hank chuckled, "He is something else, Captain, I'll grant you that."

Blake gave a slight smile before turning serious again, "We need to discuss things, Sir, before the press gets wind of this."

Hank nodded, ushering the men to his study, prepared for a long, boring discussion. The saddest thing was that he couldn't remember the last time he had been able to sit like this. It almost made him long for the days when he had needed to do hours of paperwork over simple things. Biting back a sigh he hoped that those days would be back soon, but he knew that it was a fools dream.

As the faces of their dead charges flitted through his mind he knew one thing for certain; there was no going back.

Bandon-Makes-An-End

Mucho de love!

-Bandon


	10. Back in Black

_Fire. He could feel it flit across his face, stinging. He couldn't move, couldn't scream, couldn't breathe. Smoke filled His nose but that wasn't what had Him retching onto the floor. The acidic scent of melting flesh burned Him from the inside out, leaving a trail of bile in its wake. Gagging against it He tried to move, to escape this nightmare. When his hand came into view He startled; blood coated his fingers in thick splotches. Panic made his heart swell in his chest, seizing as he lost himself to the madness swirling through the darkness. _

With a jolt he was awake, thrashing his way from the confines of his bed. In the blind struggle he fell, landing on the floor with a harsh 'thump.'

"Pyro?" Augustus called, flicking on a lamp. Sighing he tossed aside his own covers, walking the short distance to his shaking friend. "It's okay," he said softly, gently, "It's only a dream, it's not real."

"Yes," Pyro croaks, eyes riveted to the floor, "It's real, it's there, and I can see it. I-"

"It's not real _anymore_," Augustus stresses, pulling Pyro to his feet, "It's gone, it can't hurt you, it never could." When Pyro continues to shake Augustus tightens his grip, guiding Pyro to look at him, "It can't hurt you, say it with me." Pyro looks into his dual-colored gaze, fighting to comprehend, "Say it, Pyro, just say it for me."

"It's not real," Pyro recites dutifully, "It can't hurt me, it can't hurt me, it can't-"

"Yes," Augustus says softly, guiding Pyro to his bed, "It can't hurt you, not now, and not ever. It's okay, Pyro."

Pyro looked around, vaguely confused, "Where are we?" He asks, uncertain, "What's going on?"

"We're at Xavier's," Augustus says soothingly, "You're still asleep, it's okay if you don't understand. You need rest."

Pyro grunts as he lets Augustus pull him into the bed, lets himself be covered and held close.

Augustus lets out a deep breath as Pyro's mind relents, stops screaming in distress.

"He's not doing well it he?" a voice asks from the darkness.

Augustus doesn't startle; he's known for a while who was lurking in the shadows. "His mind can't cope with the conflicting memories, the conflicting powers." Taking a deep breath Augustus closed his eyes, "I fear that he's dying."

"Then fix it." Bobby says, sliding into the room.

"You know that I would if I could." Augustus snarls softly, mindful of the precious burden in his lap.

"But do I?" Bobby asked, equally soft, though no less venomous for it, "He said it himself that you hate him."

"Don't speak about something you don't understand," Augustus snaps, "I love Pyro for everything that he is," Gazing down at the dozing young man his expression goes distant, "Pyro knows that I clung to John initially, not out of love, but as a way to escape. I will admit that I had a purpose for him, that I planned to have him take my life and end my suffering, even though it prolonged his own."

Bobby gave a flash of teeth, too sharp to be called a smile, "And you accused me of using him."

Augustus cuts Bobby a harsh look, "I didn't set out to love him, to hold him as dear as I did." Clutching Pyro close to his chest he sighed, looking into the moonlight, "I wanted nothing more from John but a fiery death, quick and painful. More than I deserved, but everything I'd ever hoped for."

"You could have asked him for it, from the start," Bobby said darkly, "He was far gone enough to have agreed, even knowing nothing of your circumstance."

"You underestimate his humanity, Bobby, and after you claim to love him so much."

"John taught me early on that love couldn't be blind to faults," Bobby replies, something darkly humorous in his face, "Odd that I never really got the lesson until now, when it's so late in the game."

"A game you say," Augustus purred, curling a hand protectively in Pyro's hair, "And with whom are you playing?" A significant look from Bobby gave him his answer, "Ah," Augustus mused, "And what is our prize, when either of us wins this little game of yours?"

"You know what's at stake here." Bobby snarls, taking a step into the room.

Pyro stiffens, some inarticulate noise escaping his throat.

"Come now, Bobby," Augustus says, moving down in the bed, lying with Pyro's head on his shoulder, "You won't win any points waking him from his nap, now will you?"

Bobby smiled, sharp and wicked, "Just don't get too comfortable. You should know that if you bare your throat at one beast, others will sense the kill."

"And what other beast is there, Bobby?" Augustus smirked, "Surely not you with your ruffled fur and dainty claws?"

"We'll see." Bobby said, slipping form the room the same way he had entered, silent and sure.

"You had to pick one that would be difficult to dissuade, didn't you, my love?" Augustus sighed, running his hand through Pyro's sweat slick hair.

Bandon- Makes- A-Break

Storm can't bear to cross the front foyer. Can't stand the charred smell, and deeper, the dark stains of blood. Can't look at any of the remaining children for fear of collapsing.

She'd never though that this would be her life. She knew when her powers emerged that the rest of her time on earth would not be easy, of course. But this; blood on the floor, ashes that used to be people floating on drafts of air?

Shaking her head she walks to Hank's office, intent upon some answers. Why here, why now? _'Why the children?' _she can't help but think, and she's close to tears again, fighting for composure.

She wants to cry, to scream, to run as far and as fast as her legs will carry her. But past the hysteria cold lingers. She wants to make someone bleed; anyone, everyone. The world, with all of its faults, she wants to bleed it out, take it deeper just to throw it away. She wants the world to disappear in a blinding flash, and her with it.

_Children . . _. Only the older students remain, all the others sheltered far from the conflict. It had been a mad rush, getting all of the kids to someplace safe. Many didn't have homes, and those who did seldom wanted to go back. After hours she had managed to sort it out, sixteen of the children going to their families and the rest split between various safe houses. Storm worried about how they were handling this latest catastrophe. With five of their friends dead, how well could they realistically cope?

Shaking her head clear she focused on her current objective; find Hank and figure out what their role in this war was going to be.

"Oh, Ms. Munroe," Bobby said, almost running into her as she rounded the corner.

"Hello, Bobby," Storm answered warmly, glad that the teen looked more energetic than he had in weeks, "What has you rushing about?"

Blushing, Bobby rubbed the back of his head, "Just the usual, I guess," he mumbled, shuffling his feet.

Storm nodded, giving a noncommittal hum.

Bobby fidgeted under her gaze for several seconds more before clearing his throat, "Well. I'm just going to the kitchen, so, um, bye."

"Bye, Bobby," Storm said, watching the young man retreat. "Getting too hard to tell what he's up to, these days," she muttered.

"Who you talkin' 'bout?" Logan asked, slouching against the nearest window.

"Bobby," Storm answered, motioning for him to follow her down the hall, "One moment I'm so scared for him, and the next he looks to be on the mend."

Logan shrugged, "I guess it all depends on what's going on between him an' Pyro."

Storm pursed her lips, "I can't believe I never knew about them. For years they've lived in the same room, been in the same classes." Letting out a frustrated breath she shook her head, "I just feel like I should have done something, I don't know, something more for John."

Logan gazed straight ahead, chewing on the end of his cigar, "Don't feel bad for the kid, Storm. He knew what he was doing, maybe not from the beginning, but he sure as hell knew by the end."

"So you approve, then?" Storm asked, "You don't mind that two young boys were having sex in this house while no one knew about it?"

Logan snorted, "If you think about it, at least_ someone_ knew."

Storm frowned, "Who?" She asked, perplexed.

Logan smirked, "You said that Charles paid extra attention to John, most especially when he was just getting' here." Cutting a sideways glance to Storm, who looked on the verge of sickness, he continued, "Charles may have been trying to get on with the greater good, but some of the roads he took on his way there had some pretty fucked up pit-stops, if you know what I mean."

"I can't believe-" Storm stuttered out, "I-I mean, if he knew, if he allowed children to-to"

"To have unprotected gay sex in his youth dorms?" Logan filled in, laughing at Storm's cringe.

"How can you say it like that?" Storm said, shuddering, "If I'd have known-"

"Then you'd have put a stop to it as soon as you could, sure," Logan said, "But then John would have gotten a new room-mate or maybe a room to himself. He would have felt left out and unprotected, vulnerable and unsure. Chances are he would have left shortly after, fighting his way out when necessary."

"Why do you think that?" Storm asked with a frown.

Logan shrugged, "Street kids know what it means to pay for what they need. John knew that if he had Drake - Well-off, naïve, trustworthy Drake - on his side, he had a good hand. Take that away and what's he got? A whole lotta debt and nothing worth much to pay for it."

Storm's frown deepened, pinching her eyebrows together, "But he didn't have to pay us back for anything, he must have realized that, if not at first than at least a long time before he left."

"I don't think it was any of you that he was trying to pay. He got on with Drake 'cause he knew that without a champion in his corner he wouldn't last here."

"Champion," Storm frowned, "What 'champion'? John always fought his own battles, even when he knew he didn't stand a chance. I never caught Bobby fighting with the other kids."

"Maybe not duking it out, no," Logan agreed, "But you can bet Drake let them all know that John was his friend, that John belonged to him. John needed someone to lay claim to him so that he wouldn't be open meat."

"But this is a school, not a prison; we would never have let any of the kids take advantage of John."

"But didn't you? I know that you all try to be fair, but in the end he was an animal, even in your own minds. John must have seen how the odds were stacked against him, his word against someone else's, no proof in a place where evidence can be whipped away with nothing but a thought. Just think about how that would have been for him." Logan ground his teeth, imagining, "Street kid gets thrown in with a bunch of rich kids and all of a sudden every life skill he has means nothing. You know that kids are little bastards given half a chance. Ignoring them don't work, can't fight them without getting your own self in deeper shit, every time he runs he's dragged back." Pausing as Kitty and Peter walked past he looked out the nearest window, "I can honestly say that I get where the kid was coming from, when he got mixed up with Drake."

"But sex?" Storm cried, exasperated, "Why not homework, or chores, or, or something else? Why would he even make that an option? There wasn't even anything to be paid back, after all! John made friends almost as soon as he stopped running out the door any chance he got."

"There's always payment to be dealt, you know damn sure even if there isn't a price listed out-front. You put a scraper like John in with this posh group and you can bet he saw the strings pretty clearly. Drake had everything he needed, all the clothes, all the food and gadgets, everything that John could possibly get his hands on. When you got nothing but your body to offer, you use it. Every scrap of cloth or bite of food was another link in the chains tethering him here."

"But I don't understand!" Storm insisted, blindly following Logan as they walked through the corridors, "If you grow up in a good place of course you're going to want to stay there, that's just nature."

"Not for real animals," Logan said after a long moment, "Not for things like him and I, things that ain't meant to be tamed. The first time I woke up in that med bay I knew what was at stake. If I stayed, if I accepted help, I had no choice but to pay my debt back. When I let Charles into my head I knew that the price to be paid was coming back here, no matter what. I knew that my tether was winding around me." Nodding to where they could see several of the older kids outside he continued, "When John took to Drake he was marking something as his, making sure that if he ever got in too deep he had something to help negate the debt."

"So having sex with Bobby was John's way of buying his freedom?" Strom asked, revulsion coloring her voice.

"Like you said," Logan answered with a shrug, "He knew what he was doing, by the end. It wasn't the thought of debt that had him in so deep with Drake. That was all him, taking what he wanted and giving too much back for it too balance."

"I hate that I didn't know," Storm said softly after a couple of quiet seconds, "I hate that I never thought to ask Charles how John was adjusting to life in the mansion as compared to life on the outside."

"You trusted him to look after the kid; to make sure that nothing was going on that the boy couldn't handle on his own."

"I'm learning so many things I had no idea about, even though they were going on right under my nose, right in front of my eyes." Sighing she shook her head, "I can't believe that I let John get hurt like he did, and that Bobby is the one that did it. . . "

"I can't tell you what was going through Drake's head, but I think that he might have gotten in deeper than he'd meant to as well. When something like this happens there's no one person at fault, even if it looks like there should be. Everyone gets hurt, and, yeah, something it's not equal hurt for either side, but no one escapes unscathed from these types of things."

"You're a lot better at this stuff that I would have given you credit for," Storm confessed, noticing that during their talk they had walked past Hank's office at least twice.

Logan snorted, "Live the type of life I have, you learn a thing or two about fucked up relationships. Just so happens that I've recently gotten over something a bit like this shit."

Storm smiled, shaking her head, "I think I'm about to give up on that mouth of yours."

Logan gave a roguish grin, "Aw, and here I thought we had something special."

Laughing Storm shook her head again, entering Hank's office on their third, or possibly fourth, round, "I'll talk to you later, Logan, I have to have a few words with Hank before I can get any sleep tonight."

"Sure, Sure," Logan said, "At least the one kid patched up the wall before he booked it. It would have been a bitch to tape that hole shut before getting some shut-eye."

Storm nodded, "See you."

"Oh, Ororo," Hank said, standing to greet her, "What brings you to my office so late? Are any of the kids-?"

"They're fine, Hank," Storm quickly assured him, accepting a brief hug before sinking down into the nearest chair, "I just need to discuss some of our key points with you before I can call it a night."

Hank nodded, retaking his seat, "I just got off the phone with Winona, apparently there are already four terrorist cells citing anti-mutant propaganda and at least another dozen that claim responsibility for the attack on the US embassy in Dubai." Sighing he took up his glass, downing it in one gulp, wincing at the burn, "For all I had hoped to avoid it war is already here; it's only a matter of time. And damn it all, but it's at a far greater scale than any of us were prepared for. Entire countries are in arms over this, calling for reforms and laws. No one knows what to do anymore."

"Isn't there anything we can do, Hank?" Storm asked, already sure of the answer.

"Not that I can tell, Ororo," Hank said dejectedly, "I've tried contacting every politician I can, urging them to make gathering of more than twenty punishable by up to thirty days in prison, but no one is willing to kick the hornet's nest, not with the current climate. The president has already sent word to foreign dignitaries, warning them that their people might not be safe on American soils, not if this gets any more out of hand."

"How many attacks have there been so far?" Storm asked wearily.

"At least twenty in the greater New York area, if not more. The president is getting close to declaring a national emergency, calling for martial law until things can quiet down."

"Does he think that that would actually work? Police running around with license to kill or cure anyone they deem a threat?"

"At this point, Ororo, I really can't say. The Human-Mutant alliance has already called its members to arms, threatening to storm Washington if immediate justice isn't carried out. Congress is being flooded by proposed amendment to laws; the President was secreted away to some bunker yesterday after a bomb went off outside of the White House."

"I'm scared, Hank," Strom said at last, holding herself tightly, "I can't see an end to this madness. I can't figure out a way to keep the children _safe_. No matter who wins, too much life will be lost to be worth it. I was watching the news and I saw teenagers, just _kids_, being led away in cuffs after some kind of violent demonstration."

"I can't tell you, Ororo, and I wish I could." Sighing he poured himself another scotch, "We only have Logan, Kurt, You, and myself, a handful of young adults, and an entire country out for blood." Taking a large swallow he handed Storm a glass, "At this point, I don't even know who to root for. With each new thing I learn about recent events, I feel my ties to humanity becoming strained."

Downing her glass Strom stood, "just keep me updated, Hank, and be sure to let Logan know what's going on as well."

"Good evening, Ororo," Hank said, nodding.

"Try to get some sleep."

Bandon-Makes-A-End

Hey, so, um, yeah. I was going to put this out on Christmas, but I figured that every other author would be doing that, so I scrapped that idea. Then New Year's came to mind, but I figured that you'd be drinking by then, so that one got scrapped (And I'll be working) so I decided to do it today, when there is no significance.

Now, Emeralden, I know that you're the only one reading this, so I might as well address this just to you;

What the hell should I do with this thing? I know that you want Wolverine/Pyro slash, but I just don't think that's going to happen. (I might write you a quick one-shot, though, if I feel well after Friday.)

Anyways, R/R

Much love,

Bandon


	11. Who says a bad man never does good?

My Older Sister Fucking Sucks! (And if anyone wants to kill her, go ahead. Just make sure you don't leave a mess behind. ;P)

I'm trying to get on the Internet after a Long. Days. Work. And I can't. Because my SISTER who DOESN'T WORK or do ANYTHING productive is leeching off of it, causing it to go so slow I want to BASH her over the head. WITH A FREAKING SLAB OF CONCRETE.

If it wouldn't land me in jail then I would just get it over with already.

URGH!

(Deep breath) Since I have no choice but to write, I might as well start off with Review!response.

So, Emeralden, yeah, I'd kinda planned on something you said since the beginning. Go back to the chapter where the X-Men do the exchange. Magneto refers to someone by saying that 'He said (they) wouldn't come.' Who do you think that 'He' is? ;} I'd actually thought about the Morlocks when I first started to write this. I had originally planned a five-seven chapter fic about an OC Morlock character named Slug. It was going to be based mostly on a Holocaust-like situation; the most undesirable of peoples (to the Germans the Jews, to the Anti-Mutant factions the Morlocks) were the ones to suffer the most. My BETA at the time said that it was a stupid idea, so I dropped it. –,- See what I get for listening to other people? Ugh. Anyways, I knew that they would play a part; I just didn't anticipate how large it would be. (You'll get it after this chapter or the next.)

Katy-St. Cloud: Hey! I was wondering where you'd gotten off too! I don't think you've missed too much. I haven't been well for a while and now I'm only just getting back on my feet. Now that I know you're reading this monstrosity, what do you think I should do? I've already gotten some good suggestions, but I could always use some more reviewer intel.

SonnysFunny and _Everyone Else_:

I'll continue writing as long as my Comment/Chapter quota stays at or above five. That said, Thanks for the review! ;}

Oh, and, if you didn't notice, I put a line in the last chapter from a Lincoln Park song. My friend texted me last night about it. I wasn't going to tell you all, but now I'm curious if any of you spotted it. If you need a hint, the song is from Minutes to Midnight (album.)

Bandon-Makes-A-Start

Hank slept poorly, waking with a headache reminiscent of his very worst hangovers. Staring blearily at the ceiling he failed to notice, for several moments, that the pounding he could hear was not actually in his head.

"Hey, fuzz ball!" Logan shouted through the door, "There's somethin' you need to see out here!"

Hank groaned, rolling out of bed and dressing as quickly as his protesting body would allow. "Not all of us get to enjoy the perks of eternal youth, my boy," He said as loudly as he dared, the pain in his skull throbbing with warning.

Logan snorted, "Whatever, Fuzzy, just hurry up, will ya?"

"I will meet you in the main room, if that's quite alright." Hank said, fighting to keep his early morning temper in check.

"Whatever, just make it quick."

Grinding his teeth in frustration Hank moved from dressing to brushing his fur into place, taking care that it framed his face in the most dignified manner possible. Chuckling darkly at himself Hank looked hard at his reflection. He often ruminated on how such a simple thing as trying to eliminate the part of himself he hated had turned him into what he was today. Had he been able to stand his original mutation, to accept it, if not enjoy it, he wondered what course his life would have taken. Shaking his head to rid him of unhelpful thoughts he let the pain ground him, bringing him back to focus.

He had problems to solve, and one of those problems, whatever it was, awaited his arrival at the receiving area.

Walking briskly in that direction he noticed that the halls were disturbingly empty without the students rushing from class to class.

Nearing the entrance he heard something he didn't think was possible; children squabbling.

"What is going on here?" Hank asked in his most stern voice, rounding the corner only for his eyes to widen in shock. In the living room sat, stood, floated or clung over forty young mutants. What really stood out to him, though, was that they were all Morlocks, tunnel dwellers.

"Well look who finally showed up," Logan drawled, trying to tug a box of Poptarts out of the . . . foot, or possibly tail of one of the youngest mutants.

"Do forgive me if someone didn't clarify to me the level of emergency." Hank shot back, still stunned, "What are they doing here?"

"There tunnels were raiding sometime early last night." Storm said, coming in from the kitchen with another box of Poptarts, "Their leader brought them here before heading back with some of the others to check for survivors."

"Survivors?" Hank chocked, catching sight of burn blackened flesh and soiled bandages throughout the crowd. "Was it a purge?" He asked, wading into the room towards the oldest of the group, a man in his mid-twenties with green skin and reptilian eyes, "Were there humans or was it a mutant congregation?"

The man flicked out his forked tongue, sizing Hank up with his eyes before he motioned to one of the others to lead the teens and several small children out. Hank, Storm, and Logan waited around for the younger mutants to filter into the entertainment room.

As the last one left Hank went to repeat his question but was cut off, "We didn't see them coming until we were surrounded. They killed our sentries and blocked every exit there was. Before we could even sound the alarms they were firing upon our nests." Pausing to look around the room he licked his lips, "They targeted the youngest of our numbers, barely pausing in their efforts when we surged against them."

"Who was it?" Hank asked, "Did you see any insignia or banner?"

"No," The mutant answered, "But as the violence was winding down a man stepped forward, calling a halt to his people's assault." Shaking with fury the mutant hissed out, "He asked out leader, Boomer, to step forward and kneel. When he wouldn't the man set one of the few remaining children on fire, he laughed as we tried to put out the flames." Drawing a deep breath the man shook himself, "Boomer did what he was told after that, and that sick fuck said that he was some kind of god, able to tame so unruly a beast."

"And you're sure there wasn't any kind of identifying mark on him, on any of his followers?" Hank asked, needing to be sure.

"Nothing that I could tell," The younger mutant said, "He had golden hair and lightening blue eyes. He was a surface dweller, from the smell of him, and so were his dogs."

"A man with the ability to starts and control fire, who lives aboveground and has the presence to control an army." Hank muttered, pulling at the fur on his chin in thought.

"Marcus Donavon," Pyro said from the shadows of the hall, causing the remaining Morlocks to give startled hisses.

Motioning for them to be still the oldest pulled Pyro into the light, keeping a hand fisted in the young man's shirt, "And how do you know him? Who are you?"

"It's polite to introduce yourself first," Pyro said, giving an infuriating smile.

The Morlock hissed, drawing his fist back to punch Pyro when fire sprung up around them both. "You shouldn't try to fight your way out of a situation you know nothing about," Pyro chided, walking a tight circle around the trapped mutant.

"What do you want?" The Morlock gritted out, slit eyes narrowing further, "I won't beg for you, no matter who you think you are."

Pyro quirked an amused brow, "Oh, I think I could have you _begging_ for me," he licked his lips to get his point across; "it's just a matter of how long it'd take you to fall apart."

"Pyro!" Storm scolded, furrowing her brow at him.

Pyro rolled his eyes, "I just require your name, Morlock," He said at last, snapping his fingers to vanish the flames, "And I would suggest that you remember that while I don't like to spill mutant blood, there are always exceptions."

"My birth name was Jonathan; I've long since forgotten the rest." He nodded his head as he stepped back, "Most people call me Gator."

Pyro crossed the room to stand near the entrance to the entertainment room, "I have only one name, and it's all I care to have. You might have heard of me, once or twice."

Gator looked Pyro up and down, taking in his crimson eyes and auburn hair. "Pyro," He grated, his slitted nostrils flaring, "I'd heard that you'd escaped that damnable place, but I hadn't believed it."

Pyro grinned, wide and feral, "I wouldn't believe it, either, if I hadn't been the one to make it out."

"And how did you make it out?" Gator asked, "I know that you're a high class, I think they were whispering a four before Alcatraz, but I've seen guys stronger than you get pulled into that shit and never make it out."

"He certainly didn't do it alone," Augustus said, rounding the corner.

Gator hissed, barring his teeth, "You stink of death, little one," he said as he started to walk closer, "And something terribly familiar."

Pyro stepped in beside Augustus, calling flames to his hands, "I'd take care, if I were you, Gator," He hissed back, snarling unpleasantly, "There aren't many whose survival I place above my own, but you're treading close to the line."

Gator smiled slyly, "I see," He cooed, slithering slightly closer, "Pyro found himself a pretty new toy on the inside. A sweet piece of meat to call his own." Placing one clawed finger on Augustus' lower lip he drew down, as though intending to kiss him, "And what is the price for your plump little ass, hm? An extra piece of fruit, a nice soft-" Gator's taunting was broken off by his screams as he hit the floor, clutching his head.

Storm ran to the entertainment room, ready to intercept the kids but they didn't seem to hear anything unusual, they just sat or stood around, untroubled by the ear-piercing screams rending the air.

"Augustus," Pyro said finally, "Enough."

Augustus turned fever-bright eyes to Pyro for a moment, holding his gaze before the screams cut off into soft whimpers and ragged breathes.

"I don't need anyone to provide for me, Gator," Augustus snarled, "And I don't take kindly to being baited as part of someone's dominance games."

Gator gasp and shuddered on the floor, attempting to recover from whatever Augustus had done to him.

"A little harsh there, kid," Logan said, but his eyes betrayed his own ire. For whatever reason he had become fond of the teen, and now that he had been threatened, he felt little sympathy for Gator.

"M-my apologies," Gator gasped finally, drawing himself into an unsteady crouch, "I wanted to see what you would do, and you definitely didn't disappoint." Taking a few more deep breaths he swatted away the hands that reached to help him, "I'd wondered if you'd made it out again, Augustus Punitor."

"How do you two know each other?" Hank asked, confused.

"I mentioned earlier that I'd broken Stryker's hold several times, did I not?" Augustus asked, bored.

"But you never said you'd-"Hank started, but was interrupted.

"You never thought to ask," Augustus hissed, "You assumed that I was only able to escape into wilderness." As Hank and Storm opened their mouths to argue he rolled his eyes, "As nothing ever came of my efforts, until now, I didn't think it was worth mentioning."

"What efforts?" Logan asked, taking a long drag of his cigar.

"Almost three years ago I managed to secure passage for myself and one other mutant out of the New York facility." Augustus answered.

Gator snorted, cocking a speculative brow as he looked Augustus up and down, "How'd you get that out of them?"

Augustus smiled, thin, and sharp enough to draw blood, "I know how to get what I need without paying too high a price. Hammer Tech wanted information on Stryker, and I was only too happy to oblige."

"Did you break out just to warn the morlocks or was it an accident that you found them?" Hank asked.

"I knew that they had to be warned," Augustus said, "It hadn't been my original intention to venture into the sewers, but it couldn't be helped, at the time."

"But how did we never hear about this?" Storm asked, "If people knew that you'd escaped, knew that something like this was going on then why didn't they tell anyone?"

"We knew it wouldn't have done any good, not at the time," Gator said simply, "We took the warning and hid deeper into the old tunnels, making ourselves scarce." Inclining his head to Augustus he said, "When we first heard of Augustus the mutant registration act was fixing to be put into effect. Augustus made sure to let us all know that if we ventured beyond out caverns we'd be in danger."

"I didn't need help, not at this point," Augustus said, "Jason was still alive, transmitting everything I did back to William." Breathing out deeply he shrugged, "Marcos made it to his safe house, and I let them catch me."

"And none of the hundreds of tunnel kids thought to make sure that this stuff got top-side?" Storm asked in disbelief, "Even if it was dangerous for them, it could have easily been passed on through curriers."

"Few of us knew who the message was from," Gator said, "Rumors got passed around, sure, but nothing concrete enough to make someone believe us."

"I was very careful," Augustus said, "I knew that if word got out about the Morlocks running for cover the round up would happen in earnest. As it was I only got to them days before the second phase of testing was carried out. If I'd been even a day later-" Breaking himself off with a shudder Augustus shrugged, "I knew that no one was coming for me, that I was on my own in this."

"Not all alone," Pyro said, hugging Augustus close to his chest, "I would never forget you. I'd never leave you there, not if I could help it at all."

Augustus smiled, letting the tension in his body ebb away, "And I'll always remember that, my love."

Gator made a fake choking sound as he and fellow mutants blushed at the other teen's intimacy, "So," he said, sobering himself, "What was Donavon's goal? Why'd he break out if we haven't heard from his in three years?"

"Marcus was a strong mutant, though originally he only had the ability to conger flames without control. With the –shall we say- machinations of others, he was able to gain the ability to control his impressive powers." Leaning further into Pyro he exhaled deeply, "Marcos had a retainer with a certain General, and upon his escape he rejoined, hidden and protected as a powerful weapon."

"Until now," Hank said.

"Until now," Augustus agreed.

"Who was this General?" Storm asked, "Do you know what type of unit he ran?"

"The General's name, I believe, was Ross." Augustus said, "General Thaddeus Ross"

Bandon-Makes-an-End

For those of you who don't know why that last sentence was on importance, Google 'General Thaddeus Ross' and you'll know. What I'm getting at is that the wipe out of the Morlocks was sanctioned, in some way, by some higher power, by the American government.

Anyways, as always, let me know what you think, yada yada.

Much love, I expect constructive criticism.

Bandon


End file.
